STREET ART IN PORTUGAL
author: Manja Radić
August, 2007

translation into English: Danijela Tomazović
November, 2009

My sudden interest in street art only got more intensive after a trip to Portugal. Besides the fact that Portugal is specific for its facades with incredibly designed paneling, fado music spreading through the steep streets and wind bringing the smell of the ocean, a part of Portuguese charm is represented with street art. I say street art and not graffiti because there are many stickers and stencils, but also mural-like painted surfaces.

I will try to depicture Lisbon and Caldas da Rainha atmospheres. Caldas da Rainha is a place we stayed at, an hour away from the capital city. It is a small city close to Lisbon where the Art school (of which we were guests) is situated. Six fourth year students of applied graphics led by Professor Rastko Ciric answered the invitation of animation professor Fernando Galrito to visit the Art school and participate in FIRST, International Student Festival of Animation. The Festival lasted for 5 days, it was competitive and included various workshops (like musical, then animation workshop led by our Professor Ciric and others), evening concerts, parties…The organizer was ESAD (Superior School for Arts and Design) whose students were engaged in different fields during the festival, and thus there was a cameraman filming interviews with jury members, guest professors and similar. The whole festival was streamed on the internet. I have a feeling that the difficulty of living in a small town made these students to daub the hidden facades in cheerful stickers mostly with love message.

They are mostly black and white, drawn with marker, with occasional colored detail. There are several places in this town which reminded me of poster boards because on a relatively small surface there were dozens of different messages, drawings and even photographs with intervention. Therefore there was the most popular photograph of French kiss in Paris streets made by the French photographer Robert Doisneau, that is, only its main actors cut out of the context. These drawings enrich this small and a bit boring town, while those in Lisbon fit in the slowed down and relaxed atmosphere. Narrow, neglected (but incredibly charming) streets besides beautiful parks can often lead you to some painted wall, so each walk was a new challenge. Although Lisbon is a metropolis in every sense, its inhabitants seem not to hurry anywhere, but seemingly live lightly. That's why this amount of street art did not surprise me, same way the quality and richness of styles and ways of thinking did not surprise me either. I believe that living in Lisbon is itself enough inspirational for starters.

Theme: GRAFFITI
Graffiti in Fruškogorska Street
Ljubljana
TKV
In Love With the Street Art