Mature Flâneur Down Under
The Wild Street Art of Dunedin, New Zealand
The gray city’s walls get some urban bedazzling
Dunedin is a chilly, windy, rainy city, and its historic buildings are mostly made of grey granite stone. It’s aptly known and the “Edinburgh of the South.” Indeed, many Scots have settled in this part of New Zealand, drawn perhaps by the green hills, wild seas, plentitude of sheep, and other similarities to their homeland. The city center features a Presbyterian church, a Neo-Gothic cathedral, and even a monument to Scotland’s greatest poet, Robert Burns. So when it comes to street art, you might think a carved sheep (above) might be as radical as the city would get. Nae, laddie!
Dunedin has a penchant for street art, and some of it is pretty edgy. What I liked best is how Dunedin’s artists go big and bold. Many of the city’s multicolored murals take up whole sides of big buildings, some several stories high. Often the artists paint walls next to parking lots, where the art can be seen for blocks around, like this penguin next to a grocery store:
And the side of this children’s theatre, decorated with characters from fairy tales:
The biggest concentration of street art can be found in the old warehouse district. Owners of the buildings donated their space, and then international street artists from all over the world (plus some for New Zealand) were invited to turn the city into their canvas. Tourist information offices now hand out maps with over thirty of the large murals marked and numbered — with more being added each year. These are some of my favorites:
One tiny, rather run-down street at the center of the warehouse district is called No Name Alley, which has become well known for the concentration of art along its narrow corridor:
The mural below is by a famous Spanish wall artist, Pixel Pancho, who paints elaborate Steam-Punk style:
Phlegm is the nom-du-mur of a famous UK street artist, who has left his mark on several walls around the city, including this crazy pipe organ that apparently makes music by stuffing colorful tropical birds through the pipes:
One of the coolest works in Dunedin is a mash-up by Pixel Pancho and Phlegm. Apparently, each artist started at one corner of a wall (below) and they painted towards the middle, where their various characters and distinctive styles meshed together seamlessly:
I confess, though, that the commissioning of street art, while great for the artists and the legitimizing of the genre, goes against what I like best about the art form. I like unsanctioned, subversive, “guerrilla” street art. It may be quirky, it may be political, it may even be offensive. Luckily for me, there’s a good bit of it tucked away in Dunedin’s dark corners: a child pushing a toy tank with a realistic gunner, Trump with an alien as face and Nazi-eyeball, a pink hand grenade.
At the other extreme, there is a breathtakingly beautiful three-story realistic rendering of a young woman lying in a bed of flowers in a forest. It runs the whole length of a city parking lot:
On the opposite side of this lot, against a bright yellow wall, two surreal houses take a stroll on stilts through the sea, while a third house, wearing a purple turtleneck, sits in a bathtub.
It’s so quixotic to have these two strongly contrasting works of art facing each other across a parking lot — like putting something by Salvador Dali opposite the Mona Lisa in a museum. All the more so in gray and flinty Dunedin. But, good for the city, keeping its citizens and visitors on their toes. You never know what to expect round the next corner, laddie. Crivvens! You might get ambushed by the art!
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I’ve long been a fan of street art, and have posted about it before — especially in my beloved Paris:
For this Globetrotters travel challenge, I’ve also been inspired by Jillian Amatt - Artistic Voyages. Jill both admires and creates street art. If you have not seen her work, please check it out:
This story about Melbourne’s grungy street art by Maria Kriskovich also resonated with me:
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If you have not yet heard, my new book, Mature Flâneur: Slow Travel Through Portugal, France, Italy and Norway has just been published. You can most easily order it through your favorite independent bookstore (always the best choice) or click here for more options:
