Mural Festival 2016: Walking through Montreal’s street art

A tour of the best of the Mural Festival 2016

By: Andrés Medina / @delabuena

In Mural Festival we discover that the world of street art is growing by the minute. This cultural movement is getting stronger and more prestigious around the world. The most representative and famous artists of street art are doing their thing in the main cities of the planet, and in everything that surrounds the movement, like galleries, managers, merchandise, festivals, etc. Street art festivals around the world have been proving the huge importance that people give to this art form.

Montreal is one of the most multi-cultural cities that exist in the globe; its beauty lies on the people that inhabit it and in the magic of their streets. This city has been showing how much it cares about street art with a bigger voice since 2013 through the creation of Mural Festival. Quoting one of its founding members, André Bathalon, “…we where in Wynwood admiring the greatness of the whole experience of being there and appreciating the walls when we decided we needed to do something like that in Montreal. We started doing the production of the festival and since then everything has been going very fast, the government loved the idea so we’ve been able to grow and give a more magical experience to the people.”

What about mural festival?

Mural Festival is about democratizing street art, music, culture and having fun. For eleven days, you can enjoy live painting, installations, exhibitions, gastronomy and the joy of discovering Montreal’s streets with the enthusiasm of finding the artist’s walls.

This year’s invited artists where: D*Face, Felipe Pantone, Fafi, Buff Monster, Bikismo, Meggs, Grems, Jason Botkin, Mateo, Maser, Stikki Peaches, Klone Yourself, and many more (you can check out the complete lineup at: 16.muralfestival.com). Besides the artists that where invited to do live painting at Mural, there where other renowned names that where part of this year’s exhibitions like: Miss Van, Mr. Brainwash, Mr. André and Jef Aerosol.

 My experience at this year edition was great; the thing I enjoyed the most was the attitude of all the people involved in the festival: organizers, artists, musicians, staff… everyone has a great attitude and enjoys the festival.

The great thing about Mural Festival is walking through the whole experience. You can start by partying at the bloc parties and making your way through the exhibitions while you visit the walls. Artists are very accessible and actually the whole thing is about taking street art to the people, it’s not pretentious at all. I really recommend this festival to all of you that want to approach street art.