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August Monthly Challenge — Street Art

What street art have you come across on your travels?

With the monthly challenges here at Globetrotters, we are trying to keep a balance between nature and culture. A mixture of natural settings in the places we travel to and those cultural experiences we make when getting to interact with the people of foreign lands.

Since last month’s topic was on experiences we made in nature, we are going toward a topic more cultural again. Moving into the cities and urban developments we are looking for artworks.

Not any art but street art.

"Street art has evolved from the early forms of defiant graffiti into a more commercial form of art, as one of the main differences now lies with the messaging. Street art is often meant to provoke thought rather than rejection among the general audience through making its purpose more evident than that of graffiti. The issue of permission has also come at the heart of street art, as graffiti is usually done illegally, whereas street art can nowadays be the product of an agreement or even sometimes a commission. However, it remains different from traditional art exposed in public spaces by its explicit use of said space in the conception phase." - Wikipedia

Looking into the definitions of street art, the word graffiti often pops up. My first thoughts on street art were also sprayed walls in the cities. Street art can be made with graffiti but doesn’t have to. Many murals have been created with a diversity of paints.

“Street art is a form of visual art that is created in public spaces, typically on the streets, buildings, and other urban environments.” — Film Lifestyle

But street art doesn’t have to be a ‘painting on a wall’. Street art can be something different. Like a video projection, sculptures or some kind of street installation. Even flash mobs do count into the category of street art.

“Street art is not limited to one specific style, culture or medium. It can take many forms, from simple tags and graffiti to large-scale murals and installations.” — Film Lifestyle

While I was struggling to find any pictures of murals or other kinds of paintings captured in cities, I stumbled upon these other types of creative displays.

The bear in Berlin is part of a wide project now displaying about 500 sculptures of bears representing tolerance in the street. What a great symbol, don’t you think?

And to turn back to the lead photo. I was traveling to a tiny village in Bavaria a few years ago when old but painted bicycles carrying a bucket of flowers on the bicycle rack caught my attention. At every other corner in town, at the main square and at the entrance of the village I found them.

Aren’t these upcycled bicycles not also some kind of street art? Art standing in the streets? I’d say so but let you decide on your own terms.

It seems I don’t have many pictures or none at all of the murals or some kind of paintings found in the streets as I don’t do city trips. So here goes out my call for you.

Where have you been in the world where street art was displayed and caught your eye? Describe how you found the place, what your feelings were standing in front of it and how you got to interact with locals in front of the installations.

Street art.

We are not looking for travel stories about visiting a museum. Please share colorful, interesting and maybe provoking pieces of art you have found on the streets on your travels around the globe.

Be creative.

If you need some ideas, here we go:

The Ultimate Place to Find Street Art is XXX

My Trip to the Capital of Street Art

I Have Been Walking Down an Alley When I Saw This Painting

The Most Fascinating Street Art I Have Ever Seen

This is How I Experienced Creating Street Art Abroad

My Favorite Piece of Street Art

I Didn’t Know I’d Fall in Love With This Kind of Art

A Very Different Kind of Art

I Never Understood Why People Would Use Graffiti

A requirement for the monthly challenge submissions is to tag 2 articles that either inspired you to go to this place, have quality content about the same country you’re talking about or maybe it’s just a travel piece you really enjoyed reading.

You can use the search function to review our publication and look for articles about your destination. It’s easy and a great way to show appreciation to other writers out here.

We’re looking forward to your submissions. As always, at the end of the month, the editors of Globetrotters will announce their winners. While we also submit our entries, we do not participate in the competition.

Please remember to follow our guidelines when submitting an article:

• The maximum article length must be 10 minutes.
• Always credit your images. We only accept your own photographs. Please review our image policy if unsure.
• Write your article in the form title-subtitle-title image.
• Please add the tag “monthly challenge”.
• Make sure that travel is still a focus of your story.
• List 2 articles and tag the writers who created them
• The challenge will run from August 1st until August 28th. We reserve the last days of the month to post the results from the challenge.
• For more clarification on submissions, visit the Globetrotters submission guidelines.

We, the team of editors at Globetrotters (JoAnn, Adrienne, Jillian, Michele & Anne) want to thank each of you for contributing to our publication. You’ve sent so many fascinating articles on past challenges and we can’t wait for the next ones.

Thank you.

Jillian Amatt — Artistic Voyages has kicked off the challenge with the first prompt submission. As a street artist herself she could have displayed only her own works but found a whopping 70 different installations from around the world to display. Check out her post if you need some inspiration:

Read here the final post of our previous monthly challenge. We asked you to share your stories about activities you’ve done on your travels. In this article, the editors announce their personal winners: