Our second major commission from Cultural Spring, brought twelve street artists from Brazil, Canada, New Zealand, the USA and across the UK, to live and work from Hillhead Farm in Whitburn, South Shields. Over 80 days of activity, 30 artworks were installed using chewing gum, ceramics, glass, paint and ultra-violet lighting, to create the world’s first outdoor UV mural, revealing hidden layers at dusk, that was connected to another Wonderland mural on Roker Beach, three miles away, painted the following year.

Street Art Heroes took inspiration from the Whiteleas estate where avenues celebrate painters. On a research trip to Latin America, curator Garry Hunter spent time on the São Paulo street art scene and met with Canadian artist Roadsworth, invited from Montréal for the Hecho En Casa festival in Santiago, Chile. Roadsworth agreed to spend a month in the UK that following summer, leading on Street Art Heroes after working with us in Aldgate, Kensington, Poplar and Masham, North Yorkshire. His unique process of literally painting on the street and his history of activism made him the ideal choice. He was joined by large scale muralists, sculptor Cityzen Kane and Ben Wilson who paints on discarded chewing gum, to bring contemporary urban art practices to the previously untouched canvas between the Tyne and Wear rivers.

Project Title
Cultural Spring: Street Art Heroes

Location
Across South Shields and north Sunderland

Project Lead
Garry Hunter for Fitzrovia Noir

Curation
Anselmo Martins Dutra
Graham Carrick for Fitzrovia Noir

Production
Bee Taylor
Juliana de Souza, Universidade Sagrado Coração (SP)
Tom Chadwin
Michael Lindley at TruthStudio for map trail design

Artists
Alex Senna (Brazil)
Artista (UK)
Chewing Gum Man (UK)
Cityzen Kane (UK)
Eyez (UK)
Frank Styles (UK)
IceCreamVanMan (UK)
Irony (UK)
L7M (Brazil)
Pigment (UK/Brazil)
Roadsworth (Canada)
Toothfish (New Zealand)

Media
Cardboard, chewing gum on walls, roads and pavements, glass, jesmonite, paint

Dates
August – November 2014

Sarah Robson, South Shields resident and project participant