MINI

13—22
March
2023

Ōtautahi
Street Art
Festival

MINI FLARE 2023

2023’s Version of FLARE is still an amazing array of street artists just on a smaller scale! Mini some might say!

We have 3 walls in the heart of Ōtautahi’s CBD and all located in the arts precinct! 

FLARE 2022

FLARE is the inaugural Christchurch Street Art Festival, an exciting collaboration with our city of Ōtautahi, local businesses and local artists.

Over 80 street and graffiti artists have come together, including 7 headline artists (1 international, 3 national, 3 local) painting 7 major murals across the CBD. 4 Wāhine Takeover artists, 40 exhibiting artists, 30 laneway artists all contributed to the festival.

Headline artists include Christchurch-based Kophie (aka Meep), Wongi ‘Freak’ Wilson and Ikarus from DTR, and from out of town, Elliot Francis Stewart (Auckland), Kell Sunshine (Gisborne), Swiftmantis (Palmerston North) and Koryu (Japan). Creating new public art pieces will add to the texture of the city and reclaim Christchurch’s global status as a street art capital.

FLARE Central Pop-Up Gallery
The High Street location was perfect, made available at no cost thanks to the support of 181 High. The exhibition curation by Kophie Su’a Hulsbosch (aka MEEP) was carefully done to ensure an authentic reflection of the graffiti whakapapa of street art; we see this as a key point of difference with many other ‘street art exhibitions’. The collection was diverse and exciting, including emerging, established and headline artists across mediums including painting, printmaking, sculpture, dioramas and photography. In recognition of our Auckland artist being in isolation during the first week of the festival, we extended the gallery hours by a week, ensuring we could also provide a festival experience to this artist and enable further sales.

Guided street art tours by Watch This Space
The free street art tours had excellent uptake and fantastic commentary by Reuben Woods balancing perspectives on the international pop culture phenomenon of stickering/pasting in recognition of SlapCity’s effusive appropriation of neglected walls and city assets; also dived into existing works yielding loads of insights that gave context to the content of the artworks and the professional development of the local artists over the last decade.

Projections at 151 High Street, by Fiksate X Offline Projections
Absolutely stunning, like a hologram, best experienced inside the space, and worthy of further exploration next year in conjunction with a popup hospitality experience.

‘Make Art Not War’ by Dr. Suits X Ghostcat X Dcypher
A late addition to the festival, is a high-impact and playful but serious commentary on the very topical situation of conflict in Ukraine. Our exhibition also included works by a Russian photographer resident in Christchurch reflecting our inclusive solidarity around this issue.

Artist Talks panel discussion
Strong facilitation by Reuben and great engagement by artists resulting in a very interesting and insightful discussion; great feedback to date.