Street Art Festival Transforms Pedestrian Zone

Shopkeepers at Kleisovis Street in the center of Athens took the initiative to decorate their street and make their daily lives more colorful. The Cube Athens which operates on the pedestrian zone of Kleisovis Street, spoke with the shopkeepers of the area and they all decided that they should put together a street art festival, inviting a group of graffiti artists and asking them to paint their shutters, the free wall surfaces, the columns, even their flower pots. The urban event took place from June 13 to June 15 and it was filled with music and outdoor cooking. The street artists showed great interest in painting the neighborhood and the result was beautiful. “Our main purpose was to make our street beautiful with the works of artists, thus upgrading an area which is known for its sloppy graffiti,” explains Maria Kalafati, who owns Cube Athens and originally presented the idea. After much discussion, the shopkeepers organized a three-day Street Art Festival in collaboration with the volunteer group Glovo. Among the artist who showed up for the event were Manolis Rtmykz, Zamie, Leki, Fro, Anax, Platon, Alone98, Insane 51, Platonas, and Loaf. “It was an interesting initiative. I was informed by friends about the festival and that is how I got there. I met many graffiti artists and the atmosphere was very friendly,” said Giorgos Frogoudakis, a 22-year old student of the School of Fine Arts who is otherwise known as Fro. The festival became known among the community of graffiti artists. Although only eight were originally invited, in the end  there were more than twenty artists present. Among them was a street painter from Spain. “A Spanish artist was in Greece for his holidays and heard about the festival. He came and painted the shutters of a shop that has been closed for four years.”

READ THE ORIGINAL POST AT greece.greekreporter.com