Street Wise Mural Festival Announces Artist Lineup, Celebrates Sixth Year with Theme of Inspiring Climate Action and Optimism

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Boulder, Colorado – Street Wise Arts announces the artist lineup for its sixth annual Street Wise Mural Festival, taking place September 13-15 in Boulder, Colorado. Street Wise Mural Festival is a free event for all ages. The festival will bring at least 19 new murals to walls throughout Boulder. The artist lineup includes Colorado-based artists, several US-based artists, and one international artist. 

In 2024, the Street Wise Mural Festival spotlights themes of environmentalism and climate action. Artists will create murals and public art projects that address this theme, humanizing climate change and its impacts, visualizing scientific data, and connecting viewers to climate scientists and activists. Ultimately Street Wise hopes artists will educate and empower community members to take action and inspire climate optimism.

“This year’s festival is the result of our growing collaborations and partnerships over the last five years,” says Leah Brenner Clack, Founder and Executive Director of Street Wise Arts. “Street Wise Mural Festival celebrates the importance of art where we live, work, and play. We also hope to bring folks together around art to encourage conversations about how to protect our environment. We have many new initiatives that will give artists and the community a chance to connect and understand how we can conserve and protect our environment and move towards sustainability and resilience for all living things.”   

The artist lineup includes Colorado artists, Alexandrea Pangburn, Catie Michel?, Daniel Levinson, Dreamscape, Kaitlin Ziesmer & John Van Horn, K. Vuletich, Kate Fitzpatrick, Kaylee Bender, Noelle Miller, Oak Bloak, Shane Huss, Skela, The Designosaur, and Victor Escobedo; US-based artists: Al Hubbard & Bruce Cook, Lindee Zimmer, Mr.B Baby, and Nico Cathcart; and Apitatán from Quito, Ecuador. Street Wise partnered with CU Boulder CMCI Studio to bring the international artist to the festival. 

“We try to make a bridge between artists and designers with our students at CMCI Studio, and we were fortunate to kick-start this initiative with the Street Wise Mural Festival,” Parisa Tashakori, Designer and Director of the Master of Strategic Communication Design at CU Boulder. “I met a friend from the Dairy Art Center to discuss a collaboration and got introduced to Leah Brenner Clack to bring the international mural artist Apitatán to Boulder.” Apitatán will also host a workshop for CU students and sit on a panel discussion of South American Art and Design with Susana Machicao Pacheco.

Street Wise also partnered with the Boulder Watershed Collective to support Lindee Zimmer’s mural, which tells the tale of the beaver. This artwork illustrates the beaver’s impact on water, ecosystems and climate change, featuring these keystone species who rehydrate parched landscapes creating wildfire buffers, replenishing groundwater, and expanding habitat for numerous species. This mural coincides with BeaverCon 2024, held at CU Boulder from October 19 to 24 (more information at www.beaverinstitute.org).

In partnership with Creative Nations, Arapaho and Haida artist Bruce Cook and Northern Arapaho and Navajo artist Al Hubbard will paint a collaborative mural at the Dairy Art Center during Street Wise Mural Festival. The festival also coincides with the opening of the third annual Homelands art exhibition curated by Cook. It opens September 13 at Creative Nations’ Sacred Space at the Dairy. Homelands exclusively features Ute, Cheyenne and Arapaho artists to give annual voice to those whose lands our space is built upon. 

Mural tours, art exhibitions, live music, panels and workshops, and additional community events will take place in conjunction with the installation and live painting of new murals. Events include mural walking and biking tours with Street Wise Arts and a VIP e-bike mural tour with JD’s Joyrides. Visit Eventbrite for tickets to festival events.

Street Wise will also continue to incorporate augmented reality and projection mapping to deepen storytelling and continue collaborations with digital artists. New programming includes live music and exhibitions in partnership with Roots Music Project and The Spark. Additional partners include GreenSheen Paint and 303 Boards. 

Street Wise Mural Festival is made possible by grant support from Boulder Arts Commission, Visit Boulder, Create Boulder, and FPA Gives. Sponsors include Boulder Housing Partners?, LJD Enterprises, Wana Brands & Wana Brands Foundation, and JD’s Joyrides.

Visit www.streetwisearts.org/festival for more information. 

About Street Wise Arts:

Street Wise Arts is a 501c3 nonprofit arts organization based in Boulder, Colorado. Our mission is to create mural projects, community events, and youth education programs that enhance the urban environment, amplify diversity, and engage people in activism and dialogue. Our core values are advocating for equity and representation for artists, building cross-sector collaborations, and contributing to a diverse cultural landscape.