The team behind Stavanger’s internationally renowned Nuart Festival have embarked upon a new three-year public art project in collaboration with Oslo Municipality. The ambitious project will see the area adjacent to the Akerselva river, which cuts through the centre of the city, become a venue for the world’s leading street artists.
The public art project aims to celebrate the diversity of the four neighbourhoods through which the river flows (Nordre Aker, Sagene, Grünerløkka and Gamle Oslo) and invite the local community to rediscover the area through the creation of an ‘art trail’ that traverses boundaries, both real and imagined.
Nuart RAD forms the core of Oslo Municipality’s five-year action plan for street art, which promotes graffiti and street art as part of contemporary art in public spaces. After the Art Order was changed in 2013, 0.5 percent of Oslo’s total investment budget is now allocated for public art.
“A larger proportion of funds are used for art in the city’s many outdoor spaces, for temporary events and for projects that are developed over a longer period of time in line with the city itself …The collaboration with Nuart is a project we have high expectations for. We hope that the art projects engage and contribute positively to better urban environments” Lise Mjøs, Department of Arts in Oslo Municipality
Spanish artist Isaac Cordal was the first artist to be out on the river putting up a total of twenty-one miniature sculptures from Frysja in the north to Grønland in the south.
Nuart RAD will be ‘officially’ launched with a conference and series of events, film screenings and workshops this fall (exact date TBC).