Stirling all set for Street Art Festival
Play your part on cubes dotted around the city
Stirling’s streets will come alive with art and music next weekend as the city launches its first Street Art Festival.
`Animating Our Streets’ is a collaboration between Go Forth Stirling and the city’s traders and creative community and runs from Saturday, September 22, to Sunday, September 23.
Go Forth Stirling director Jon Walton, social entrepreneur Janie Meikle Bland and street artist Mia McGregor are behind the initiative to promote Stirling featuring interactive art installations and pop-up music spots.
Shoppers and visitors will be invited to contribute to an innovative public art project by drawing and writing on 81 metre cubes sited around the city.
The project, run by Ms McGregor, aims to encourage creativity and her cubes will be installed in Stirling Arcade, Europa Music and the Sable and Flea Coffee shop in Friars Street, in the Kilted Kangaroo pub and the Thistles Shopping Centre.
She said: “The cubes are all about collaboration and absolutely anybody and everybody can take part in contributing to them.
“They are a platform for people to design, write or draw something and the final artwork will be amazing because all these moments, stories and connections are brought together.
“The art people create is likely to be different depending on where the cube is placed, so perhaps the Europa one will have a musical theme and at the coffee shop we may get work which reflects what people are doing there. It’s a great experiment to see what will happen.”
Once the cubes are complete, Ms McGregor, from Doune, plans to turn them into a huge mural to be situated in Stirling Arcade.
She added: “This is Stirling’s first street art festival and we hope it will become an annual event so people can see what the city has to offer and to promote our fantastic independent shops.”
Mr Walton describes the cube project as a “stroke of genius” and has high hopes for the first festival organised by Go Forth Stirling (the city’s Business Improvement District). He said: “`Animating Our Streets’ is a chance to highlight those people, products and services and bring the streets of Stirling to life. It’s a great opportunity to engage with city centre customers and businesses, create amazing art and have some fun at the same time. The BID is all about supporting business by improving awareness, creating entertainment and driving footfall.”
The weekend also includes entertainment as up and coming performers bring music to the city’s streets.
And there will be documentary photography opportunities — telling the stories of local businesses and the transformation of the cubes — created by young people and led by Mrs Meikle Bland who runs social enterprise Picture the Possible.
The weekend of September 22/23 was chosen as it coincides with the Bloody Scotland Festival and the end of Freshers’ Week at the University of Stirling.
Mrs Meikle Bland added: “It’s a great opportunity to promote our city to Bloody Scotland audiences and introduce students to the wide range of independent traders we are lucky to have in Stirling.”