Murs Lliures — Barcelona’s network of legal walls for urban art
Barcelona
1.10.2012
Murs Lliures was born out of the need to free up spaces of creativity for Barcelona’s urban artists. A city that had turned its back on this art form, and from which a great many highly skilled artists had fled to paint on walls or riverbeds in other towns, where they had time to create more elaborate pieces without being fined. Recognising the need for Barcelona to hold on to this talent, Murs Lliures works with each district so that spaces are set aside and become meeting points for the neighbourhood’s creativity.
The spaces, handed over by the district, are managed by the platform, which essentially works to ensure the widest possible participation. Through the online platform, artists request a specific space, for which they receive an official permit to paint. The illustration, mural or piece of writing stays up for a limited time — a minimum of one week, extended depending on the number of requests that space receives. The main idea, fitting in as many urban artists as possible, relies on this turnover that the spaces in each district need to achieve. This ephemeral quality of the works is, moreover, already part of the essence of urban art, which doesn’t aim to last over time but to create a spontaneous impact that has some effect on the casual observer.
Just as the aim is to reach as many people as possible willing to make use of these spaces, the aim is also to bring in as many artistic disciplines or styles as possible. So, although the original proposal came from the graffiti community, the platform’s aim is to welcome all kinds of artistic expression.
Goals to achieve
• Give Barcelona’s urban artists an outlet for their creativity.
• Bring quality and added value to this kind of art.
• Encourage and strengthen the creative, elaborate side of urban art, over more invasive signatures or tags.
• Secure pleasant working spaces so that well-crafted pieces can be made without rushing.
• Achieve high participation from artists and styles, and secure dynamic spaces that work as meeting points for creativity.
In the video, the presentation of Murs Lliures as the winning project at the 2012 BDigital Digital Innovation Awards, in the innovative ideas and pilot projects category. It explains how the platform works —register, choose a wall, download the permit, paint and upload the photo— and the plan to extend it to other cities and countries.
Video transcript (translated from Catalan)1 min 34 s
Murs Lliures is a project by the association Rebobinart that sets out to manage public spaces for artistic intervention. The idea is to channel urban art in order to encourage public participation and get livelier neighbourhoods.
Urban art is being valued more and more all over the world. In Barcelona we have extraordinary urban artists we don't want to lose. We are working with Barcelona City Council to obtain spaces like these in every district so we can carry out our interventions there.
We have a web platform where anyone who wants to paint can register: they pick a city, a place within that city or a district, and the wall comes up. From that wall they download a permit so they can go and paint. Once the work is finished, they take a photograph and upload it to the website. That way, as well as being a space-management platform, we also get a gallery where artists can show the work they have done.
Right now we only have spaces in the city of Barcelona. We are working to be able to reach other cities and other countries soon, so that everyone can enjoy this initiative. Urban art is ephemeral, but with projects like ours we can make it eternal.
Video by BarcelonaDigital. Video transcript, edited for reading: repetitions and verbal fillers have been removed, the text has been punctuated and speakers are identified.
