Street art by Peter Ferrari and Nick Benson in Old Fourth Ward, a neighbourhood in Atlanta, Ga. (Photo: BurnAway/Wikimedia Commons)
Artists around the world are adding bursts of colour to their city in the form of street art, a phenomenon that has gained a lot of media attention in the last few years.
Now Google has stepped into the street art scene, adding some credibility to an art form that rests on a fine line between beautiful murals and illegal graffiti. Google provides several outlets to enjoy street art that is continents away, including the @GoogleStreetArt account which Tweets out daily images of worldwide street art, and the Google Street Art Project. The latter was launched in 2014 and has been gradually added to ever since, curating a digital collection of street art that can be toured both visually and audibly. Scroll through Buenos Aires and discover how an aborted attempt at building a highway back in the 1990s left many walls in the northern part of the city unclaimed—a haven for street artists who have since covered the walls with murals.
Montreal is the focus of Google Street Art Project's Canadian street art with a wide range of murals—including tributes to novelist and playwright Michel Tremblay and film producer Norman McLaren—splashed across the city. But that isn’t to say other parts of Canada aren’t seeing the colourful explosion of street art as well.
In Vancouver, the city’s mural program has been revitalized over the past two years, resulting in alleys across the city blossoming with artwork. In an interview with Rabble, Scott Edwards—manager of street activities with the City of Vancouver—said the mural program is meant to beautify neighbourhoods, build strong communities, and give emerging artists the opportunity to get noticed.
