After a three year hiatus, the Flare Ōtautahi Street Art Festival is back for 2025! Featuring seven headline artists creating large-scale murals across the city, more than 50 additional artists contributing to a range of creative activations, street art tours, an artist panel, workshops, a market and an exhibition – this is going to be huge! Oh, and did we mention the creation of Aotearoa’s tallest mural by Jacob Yikes?!?
To mark this return, we caught up with some of the central organising crew – project manager Selina Faimalo, artists Dcypher and Kophie a.k.a Meep, along with our own Reuben Woods to chat about the challenges, the excitement and legacy of Flare!
So, there’s less than a week to go until Flare Ōtautahi Street Art Festival 2025 kicks off! How are you feeling Selina?
Selina Faimalo: I’m good!
Are you sure?
SF: I feel a bit scattered as there’s so much to do, but it is such an exciting time!
You have already done a lot, Yikes has started his huge mural on the Distinction Hotel, the multi-crew wall in Sydenham is complete, a lot of the behind-the-scenes stuff is coming into place… How different has this year been from the 2022 festival?
SF: It’s much easier. There are no Covid restrictions, which has made it a lot easier! With the funding we had already secured, it’s been way easier to get sponsors to get behind it. I guess it’s been okay with walls… Actually, it’s been easy to get the walls, it’s been harder to get concepts approved…
What are the most common challenges with getting concepts approved?
SF: Flare is all about creative freedom, so getting feedback from wall owners and then giving it back to the artists has been hard. We didn’t really have that as much with the first festival.
Do you think that’s because of the new locations or is it a changing sentiment? Street art has to deal those relationships constantly, balancing permission and a process of concession with creative expression. Dcypher, Kophie, as artists how do you navigate those challenges and do those experiences give you more insight when you’re on the ground team helping organise these types of events?
Kophie a.k.a Meep: For me, it’s always important to be able to interpret the brief in my own way, but in doing so I really value working with people and reflecting community, social and environmental issues, which are informed by the research I carry out. Freedom isn’t about painting whatever I want, it’s about responding in meaningful ways to the brief to reflect my ethos as well as the broader community. I think I now get more opportunities to work in that way.
Dcypher, you’re pretty versatile, have you always been willing to go with the flow?
Dcypher: Yeah, that’s always been my approach. I feel like mural art is one of those things
that hopefully reflects community, you know if multiple people have input it always has more impact,
rather than just doing exactly what I want to do all the time. It can be less impactful to only have one specific viewpoint , not a more wide-ranging perspective.
Ultimately, that is a sign of public art right? It’s this mixture of expression and public conversation, so it’s always walking a tightrope in a way…
D: Exactly it’s like a discussion interpreted into a visual format that can be translated in many ways.
What is it like being on the organisational side of something like this? Obviously, your expertise as artists is super helpful, but how much do you enjoy this side of it and would you rather just be an artist being invited to a festival?
D: Yeah, I would love to be the artist invited to all the festivals and having that creative freedom, but ultimately at the same time I actually like all the groundwork and boots-on-the-ground stuff that has to be done, just having a stake in helping other artists achieve their goals as mural artists is something I enjoy.
K: I’ve got a long history with event management, project management, and working with Selina, so I really like it, doing all the design and stuff like that, it’s fun. Tiring but fun. I organised the exhibition for the last festival as well.
2025 is the second incarnation of Flare, how has it evolved from that first iteration? We have already mentioned that the first festival was hampered by Covid, which changed some of the plans, is this version more like what you always envisaged for Flare?
SF: Yeah definitely. I think we have a solid team now behind Flare. I was a complete noob during the first Flare, I’d done events and stuff, but not street art festivals, obviously, having Kophie and Dcypher and Ikarus help me learn about the culture, I think I understand it all more now…
As much as you can anyway, right! Nothing is ever straight forward, right? There is always some issue or logistical problem, and this festival has had its fair share. I mean, creating one of New Zealand’s biggest murals is always going to create a lot of problems! Then you’ve got the relationship between the creative side and the commercial side. What other challenges have come up and how have you dealt with them?
SF: Often the walls to paint are easy to get, but the land next to the wall you are painting are hard and can be a barrier to getting across the line. Then there’s navigating relationships with who’s in the festival, trying to be inclusive, trying to stretch the budget. Everyone wants to be part of the festival, everyone wants to be involved, but you only have so much money and space…
D: Having done previous festivals, obviously it builds up the reputations of all the artists and
other people who want to get involved. It shows the greater community, the people that might be
paying for murals, the quality you can get. It shows off artists to the wider world…
SF: With Flare and my involvement organising large scale murals in between, I can understand what it means to organise a mural, but it’s so niche, there’s not that many people I can ask, it’s a very random job. But it’s really cool being a part of the process, like how much paint you need to order, what equipment you need. With Yikes’ mural, it was a logistical nightmare, I feel like now I could organise any scale mural, because that one is like three large lifts and abseilers and a massive projector that weighs 70 kilos! So, I think having a good team, a good community, is really key.
Talking about involving people, how did the seven headline artists come to be selected? We’ve got Nick Lowry, Jessie Rawcliffe, Jacob Yikes and Ysek7, all from Ōtautahi, and then you’ve got the three out of town artists, Fluro, Haser and Berst, what were the key reasons for selecting those artists?
D: I think there is always a desire to get new people opportunities who haven’t been part of
Flare before, but definitely, there should also be a focus on well-established Christchurch
artists…
K: It’s always important to have a diversity of styles.
SF: Berst is a key figure in the graffiti world and is generally just awesome to work with. We always have an approach that ensures graffiti is a big part of the festival and having Berst as one of the headliners achieves that, Fluro both has a connection here, having grown up in Ōtautahi, and she also comes from a graffiti background. Haser, has that grounding as well, but he also brings a totally unique style, infusing his work with his experience as a Māori artist. I feel like we need more representation of Māori art works locally…
It becomes about a public discourse, right? It’s the same with graffiti, which is seen as this thing to chastise, so incorporating it is really important to help the public to understand it and what impact it can have. It’s about acknowledging and creating a discourse about public performance. From a personal point of view for each of you, what are you most looking forward to in Flare?
SF: For it to start!
K: The opening and closing parties!
SF: I think just seeing it all happen. As soon as everyone’s got all their paint and they’ve got their lifts and it’s can to wall, paint brush to wall, and I can actually see what’s happening visually, rather than just on my computer and on my phone!
D: I think getting lots of artists in one spot together is just really cool. Starting conversations
and having an exchange of ideas and approaches to muralism for artists is a massive draw card for the New Zealand mural art scene in general, it’s not something that happens a lot, especially having everyone coming from all ends of the country.
K: Just hanging out with everyone, like in the last festival, when we got to scooter around on the Lime Scooters and see everyone’s progress, hang out and collaborate like Dcypher said. There’s such a wide mixture of things happening this time as well, so it’s like every day there is going to be stuff going on…
D: I think that the market day [on Saturday, March 8 at Te Pae Green] is probably going be a highlight for me, and of course, creating the largest mural in New Zealand!
How much thought goes into how this event reflects Ōtautahi’s street art standing? Obviously, there are some really good events around the country, like South Sea Spray, Graffiato, Boon, how important is it that Flare, just like Christchurch, has a unique vibe and feel, rather than it sort of replicating what’s already happening elsewhere?
SF: I guess it’s co-created, I think that’s the whole the thing about Flare, it’s created by everyone if that makes sense, it’s Dcypher, it’s Kophie, it’s Ikarus, it’s you, it’s everyone. It’s us trying to make it happen together…
D: I think just geographically the city’s layout and architecture is perfect for a thriving mural scene especially after the earthquakes it just really put Christchurch at the top of the list for muralism in New Zealand. All the prior festivals, Rise, Spectrum, all the stuff that OiYOU! did, you know everything that came before any of this started is super important as to where it’s going to go and why it is the way it is right now. All the work that everyone’s put in beforehand is finally culminating with Flare.
K: The incorporation of graffiti as well, is unique.
There’s a sense of authenticity because Flare is representing something that is organically and authentically happening in the city already. It’s incorporating those parts of the culture that matter in a way that maybe some other places are unable to do for various reasons. We’ve been through so much that half of the sell has already been made, its established. We need this type of event because we’ve got such an embedded urban art culture here. That goes along with making this event work, that sort of authentic, organic aspect, it’s a response to our city’s history, and it feels quite powerful.
SF: I think as well like I don’t know other cities, but everyone’s pretty easy and knows each other, it’s not too hard to get people to work together.
D: The Christchurch scene has always been like that, even back in the day all the different
graffiti crews, even though there were obviously conflicts, more often than not
everyone just got along and painted together…
That is important because everyone is pulling in the same direction, everyone wants it to be successful rather than having people wanting to tear it down. Kophie, you were at an important age when like the likes of Rise and Spectrum took place and you got to be part of those festivals, how much of an influence did those experiences have on your pathway to becoming the artist you are now?
K: I was already writing graffiti and stuff, but just hanging out with all those international artists was just really inspiring, so I kind of like forced my way in there to volunteer and hang out with everyone, I just hung around and didn’t stop hanging around people until they let me paint!
SF: That’s how you make friends!
Do you hope that Flare will do that for another generation?
K: I hope so, but a lot of people don’t want to put in the volunteer work, or they just expect things to be handed to them, so get in there and do stuff…
For you Dcypher, this must be so pleasing, because when you were coming up we didn’t have these types of events here in Christchurch, it must be awesome to see that that evolution from your point of view.
D: Yeah, I mean half the reason I moved to the States was because I didn’t necessarily see a career
path here strictly painting murals . I knew Project Legit wouldn’t have longevity with the City Council’s viewpoint it wasn’t necessarily going to fund it forever, so it was time to leave. So coming back to Christchurch and seeing how much it had developed after the earthquakes was awesome…
Surely a programme like Project Legit would have benefited so much from having something like Flare, because it is a pathway, right? Project Legit was helping young graffiti writers explore positive outcomes, but where could they go from there at that time?
D: Yeah, at the time, I don’t think a lot of people saw a direct career path. I definitely did early
on, but all the other guys I would work with, not many of them saw that same career path,
everyone just wanted to keep it just strictly graffiti and unadulterated which is obviously the core ethos of graffiti culture. I think some people had that line of sight and a lot of people have differing viewpoints, it was either something that faded in their twenties, but now new generations can see a clear career path, even if they may not be hyper focused on it, they can still kind of see it as a potential direction.
So, how can people get involved this year in Flare?
SF: Come to everything!
D: Support your local artists, buy stuff! Exchange ideas!
SF: Go to the show, come to the talks and learn about the headlining artists, go on the tours and learn about what’s there already, volunteer…
D: Just bring life back into the city. After the earthquakes, all the malls took people away from the city, so this is a massive draw card to bring people into the city and make it feel alive.
Flare Ōtautahi Street Art Festival kicks off on February 28th, with the programme running through March 9th. Stay tuned for full Flare coverage – including the full programme, interviews with artists and updates! Get excited!