It’s time to paint the town red – or, with murals of everything from hyper-realistic portraits to stunning 3D balloons – with the news that Nuart is back this summer.
Not just that, it’s also back to that compressed, long weekend format that will create such a massive buzz of energy in Aberdeen city centre this June.
Personally, I can’t wait to see some of the best street artists in the world out and about, transforming city walls into stunning works of art in a frenzy of creativity.
Last year’s event was good, but distant from people, when it was stretched out over several weeks without public participation to allow for pandemic safety rules.
This time around, from Thursday June 9 through to Sunday June 12, it will be a fast-paced, exciting thing to witness as artists leave their mark on the Granite City on new walls.
And, make no mistake, it’s quite a mark to make. For the past five years, Nuart has been a powerful force for changing the heart of Aberdeen for the better.
Street art makes Aberdeen special
Almost everywhere you look, you will find something to catch your eye – from the huge portrait on the Green, to the odd junction box transformed into a miniature block of flats.
Some are here to last – love the scurry on Holburn Street – while others are swept away in the tides of time and change, like the lighthouse girl vanishing when the wrecking ball ran through Aberdeen Market.
Some you can’t miss… Fanakapan’s balloons on the side of the health village, for example. Others you need to seek out… Helen Bur’s haunting image of a couple and their baby on the side of the Meridian building on Union Row.
But, all of them do the same thing: make Aberdeen somewhere special.
Put art at the core of recovery and change
They bring an air of a city that isn’t just transforming its walls, but transforming itself, changing the way it sees the world and, hopefully, the way the world sees it. Putting art at the core of recovery and change is the way ahead for a city that needs, now more than ever, to rediscover itself in this changing world we live in.
Nuart will leave us with a tangible lasting legacy of public art that can make us smile, make us think, spark our sense of wonder
And people are ready to embrace Aberdeen as a city of culture.
We saw it with Spectra earlier this year, when the festival of light brought something to our city centre that had been sorely lacking as we started to come out of the winter lockdown – people and life.
Now, Nuart stands to do the same in June over a few heady days, with new walls to become works of art.
Unlike Spectra, though, it won’t just provide us with great memories of a very special event. Nuart will leave us with a tangible, lasting legacy of public art that can make us smile, make us think, and spark our sense of wonder.
It can also – if we let it – renew our sense of pride in an Aberdeen that is getting back on its feet and taking strides into a better future.
Scott Begbie is entertainment editor for The Press & Journal and Evening Express
