urban art – Page 2 – Watch This Space

The Giant Cans – Notepad, Incubator, Constantly Changing Canvas…

With the upcoming refresh of the three ‘permanent’ art cans at the St Asaph Street Giant Spray Cans site, we have been thinking a lot about these unique surfaces and their evolving appearance. While the three cans to the west serve as commissioned installations, with a revolving roster of artists and crews decorating the cylindrical forms, the other three cans, situated to the middle of the space (closer to the basketball court) are a type of legal wall space, an open source option for people to adorn with markings and makings of all kinds. The impact of each set can be strikingly different. The cohesive ‘permanent’ designs serve as aspirational inspiration, but the more haphazard patina of the ‘legal wall’ cans can be equally as interesting – from signals of presence to gestating visual ideas, the cacophony of tags, handwritten messages, characters, patterns and icons are a wide gamut that becomes a thick layer of paint.

Tune! A Creative Playlist with Klaudia Bartos

We are stoked to bring you the newest entry to our growing playlist! We reached out to 2024 Little Street Art Festival artist Klaudia Bartos to find out what music inspires her creativity and keeps her going in the studio. As the multi-talented artist explains, much like her wide-ranging approach to visual art, her musical tastes are also varied: “There are so many different genres of music I like that I could never pick a favourite- especially while making art!” So, what songs will Klaudia never skip and what might we find her listening to as she creates the paintings, prints, sculptures and everything in between that we have come to love? Read on to find out!

Postcard from Mexico

Mexico is a hotbed of colourful culture – from the heritage of Aztec history, the muralist movement, the folkloric expressions, energetic graffiti and more recently, the emergence of a contemporary mural style infused with all of these influences… Last year we were lucky enough to spend some time in Mexico, visiting Mexico City and Puerto Vallarta and capturing some arty goodness. It can’t be understated how massive Mexico City is, bustling and colourful, the juxtaposition of traditional graffiti, fun street art, murals and public art a reflection of the city’s diversity. With only a couple of days to explore, much of the art we found was in the Condesa area where we stayed, but we also were able to witness a huge amount of art as we travelled outside the city to the impressive pyramids of Teotihuacán, murals, slogan typography and of course the frescoes of the ancient Aztec city itself. Puerto Vallarta is renowned as a bright, vibrant destination, and the collection of murals throughout the city most certainly adds to that profile – often displaying elements of local culture and history…

Jacob Yikes Goes Big for Flare!

We love @larraman’s time lapse of Jacob Yikes’ massive mural on the Distinction for Flare Ōtautahi Street Art Festival – an insight into the work that goes into such a huge undertaking! Thanks to ChristchurchNZ and @larraman for this incredible footage – and to Flare and Yikes for the vision! Tallest mural in Aotearoa? Completed it mate!

Stay tuned for more Flare Ōtautahi Street Art Festival recaps!

Watch This Space X Flare Ōtautahi Street Art Festival Artist Panel

Watch This Space was proud to host the 2025 artist panel discussion for the Flare Ōtautahi Street Art Festival. Joined onstage by Haser, Fluro, Berst, Jessie Rawcliffe and Ling, the conversation ranged from cultural influences and connection to place, to graffiti’s lineage, the differences between Melbourne and Ōtautahi and when Ling will finally paint a portrait of Berst! Hosted at Dux Central, the event capped a massive week for the artists and organisers of the Flare Festival. Luckily, in case you missed it, we recorded the event and you can watch it below!

Thanks to Corban Tupou for hosting the live stream and Local Elements for working the sound! We are already looking forward to 2026!

Spotlight Version 3.0 – with Iva Anjani

The latest Spotlight work to illuminate the Gloucester Street side of Te Pae Christchurch Convention Centre is a warm, inviting scene created by local artist Iva Anjani. Further exploring the possibilities of the projected animation format, Anjani’s peaceful domestic scene was created by hand, stitching together up-cycled materials to compile the image. A painstaking process, the work is imbued with care and exudes a sense of serenity, a reminder of those places where we can find sanctuary. With the scene brought to subtle life through the wizardry of Immersive Reality’s Nick Keyse, Anjani’s work provides a soft contrast to the urban surrounding, a window of calm to contemplate. As Anjani’s first public artwork, we took the opportunity to talk to the artist about her experiences and reflections as her vision came to life…

Flare Ōtautahi Street Art Festival 2025 – What, where, when and how to get involved!

The Flare Ōtautahi Street Art Festival kicks off on Thursday, 27th February – and it is bringing 10 days of epic street art goodness! With a massive offering of things to do and see, let’s get everything you need to know in one place!

Flare Ōtautahi Street Art Festival 2025 Is Almost Here!

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!

Postcard from L.A.

Los Angeles is an iconic city, but it never quite feels like it lives up to any sense of beautiful grandeur, the architecture is more post-modern than historic, the sun bleaches so many of its surfaces that there is always a sense that it has been washed out, and the sprawl makes it hard to contextualise your location. But despite this, there is an undeniable quality to the various haunts, whether it is the air of Hollywood Boulevard, the familiar locations from film and television, or the eccentricities of Venice Beach. The wide streets and the open expanse above give it feeling not dissimilar from post-quake Ōtautahi, although on a completely different scale. So when we were recently in the city, there was an unsettling melange of familiarity, strangeness, expectation and reality. But, for all that, there were lots of artistic treats to discover, from large murals to smaller interventions, with some big names thrown in the mix. It is impossible to cover all of such a sprawling city, and even the places we did explore are often hard to fully navigate, but here are some favourites we did find. Dive on in and check out some of our highlights from the City of Angels…

And That Was… September and October, 2024

Oops, we did it again – you get another two-for-one this time as our busy schedule kept us a little behind the eight-ball when it comes to our favourite things! It might be a little concerning, what with a bumper summer incoming and a heap of cool projects on the horizon – but fear not, we make a promise to be very, very good. We hope. But enough with the apologies, let us celebrate what has been a prolific period with some highlights! Here are the things we loved over the last couple of months…