WALL CLAIM BY Emily Eldridge

Wallspot has presented WALL CLAIM, a new art programme that consists of inviting different artists who are part of the platform to paint an artistic intervention on the outer wall of the Centre Cultural La Farinera Del Clot in Barcelona. The motifs of the murals will be in tune with some of the International Days established by the UN. Wall Claim, thus, responds to the need to give visibility to certain social groups using art as a means and tool of social claim.

On the occasion of International Women’s Day, this past March 4th 2020, the First edition of this artistic programme was celebrated. It was important that this first mural was painted by a woman.
Emily Eldridge, who regularly paints on the platform, has been the selected artist, and has left a wonderful and colourful mural linked to the theme of the female artist figure on the outer wall of the Centre Cultural La Farinera del Clot that we can visit until June. She is an artist and illustrator from the United States who currently lives between Barcelona and Berlin. Usually, Emily works on this theme (the female figure), not only in the field of urban art, but also through installations, illustration and graphic design. This particular mural not just defends the figure of women, but goes a little further, since it also embraces the versatile identity of the female artist.
Related to this topic, during the afternoon on the same day, the artist and Carla Gimeno Jaria, curator of the Wallspot platform and the project, held a talk on Women and Urban Art. The small underrepresentation of female artists within urban art was uncovered during the talk. Also, during the talk, the artist and Carla Gimeno highlighted how Wallspot’s platform has provided with more security and legality in this type of art, as well as created opportunities to meet and recognise the work of female artists, who can share and promote their work internationally. Women’s daily struggle to conquer spaces that have been historically dominated by the men, as well as the improvements that have been held in recent years, was latent, but they also insisted that there’s still work that needs to be done. After the talk, there was a space for debate with all listeners, who could express their opinion or share their personal experiences.

For this 2020, apart from Wall Claim’s first edition on the International Women’s Day there will be other editions whose artists have not yet been selected, so if you want to produce an artistic mural with a social claim in Barcelona, you’re still on time to paint and make your work visible!
The platform provides to the selected artists with artistic fees, the materials and infrastructures needed to paint and also promotes the work done through a video interview at Wallspot communication channels (web, blog, social media, newsletter, and press).