Wool, flour or sugar, vegetable foam, paper, water… and street art. For eight years, this funny artistic mixture has been the recipe for the In Cité ecological urban art festival, the 2023 edition of which took place at the end of June, in Rostrenen (Côtes-d’Armor) and Châteauneuf-du-Faou ( Finistere). Since its beginnings in 2014, the event, supported by the cultural association La Fourmi-e, has favored artistic approaches using recyclable or recovered materials, and low-polluting techniques, to minimize the environmental impact of the works.
Coffee grounds frescoes, paper origami installations, high-pressure cleaner drawings, collages made from flour and sugar… Each year, the ten artists in residence for three weeks compete in imagination to avoid solvents, chemical pigments and waste. The inhabitants themselves take part in this great artistic happening, by making “tag knitting” (also called graffiti knitting or yarn bombing), this art which consists of dressing urban furniture with thread. A way to bring color to the streets, to arouse curiosity and to humanize the public space, without damaging anything. Just pull on a thread to unravel the work and find the original support.
Until recently, the small festival was an exception. Little visibility was given to this wide range of practices brought together under various names. “Green street art”, “ecological urban art”, “eco-street art”, so many names for a movement born in the 2000s, which is experiencing, at a time of climate emergency, renewed interest. In Paris, mid-May, the Gravity festival (3e edition) brought together the creations of street artists and conferences around ecology, at the GoodPlanet Foundation. Also in Paris, from March to June, the “Second life” exhibition brought together eight artists, invited by Fluctuart, an art center dedicated to street art, located along the Seine, to create installations from recycled materials. .
Training effect
Today, chlorophyll color creativity is spreading. “Alongside long-standing artists committed to the environment, the demand from communities, galleries or festival organizers for cleaner creations contributes to revisiting practices. There is a natural ripple effect”welcomes Mouarf, graphic designer illustrator and co-founder of Notorious Brand, an agency specializing in the promotion of urban arts, organizer in particular of the Gravity festival.
You have 72.74% of this article left to read. The following is for subscribers only.