Festival brings art to Stirling streets
A Doune street artist is helping Stirling come alive next weekend with its first Street Art Festival.
Mia McGregor has linked with Go Forth Stirling and social entrepreneur Janie Meikle Bland to promote the city through interactive arts installations and pop-up music spots.
Animating Our Streets will run on Saturday and Sunday, September 22 and 23.
Mia is involved in a public art project inviting people to draw and write on eight 1m cubes placed around the city.
Her cubes will be installed in Stirling Arcade, at Europa Music and the Sable and Flea coffee shop in Friars Street, in the Kilted Kangaroo pub and the Thistles Shopping Centre.
Once the cubes are complete Mia plans to turn them into a huge mural for Stirling Arcade.
Arcade manager Ashley Shiels said:“We hope to display the final art pieces on the wall within the King Street entrance.”
Grant Reid, owner of Calluna Ethical Living in Murray Place, is also supporting the festival.
He said:“The cubes are a brilliant strategy which will hopefully encourage more people to visit parts of Stirling such as Murray Place, Friars Street and Upper Craigs, where there is so much colour and variety on offer.”
The weekend also includes entertainment as up-and-coming performers bring music to the city’s streets.
One of the musicians taking part is 15-year-old singer-somgwriter Joseph Hewer, who said:“I’m excited to be involved with the festival, which is a great outlet for all the artistic talent and enthusiasm we have in Stirling.
“We’ll be bringing some liveliness to places like Friars Street and Murray Place and hopefully help get more footfall into these areas, which are full of great independent shops.”
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.