Utsirart Event, Utsira Norway

Posted by Rosh Boroumand on 18th August, 2014
Filed under: From the Street

For this week’s blog post we are taking you to a very quaint but picturesque island called Utsira where very recently artists from UK, Spain and Norway were invited to take part at the Utsirart event.

Utsirart is the brainchild of graffiti and street art photographer and enthusiast toris64, who together with one other UK street artist (who remains unknown) treated the residents to their very own street art event for the first time ever in their history.

With a population of just over 200, this tiny Norwegian autonomy had the great honour to welcome the likes of Pichi&Avo, Stik, La Staa, JPS , 3F and ATM. In less than one week, they expressed their creativity onto anything from wind turbines, barns, houses to rocks in the untouched landscape.

The result is something very unique indeed, an exciting and well balanced mix between the graffiti art, street art and it’s natural habitat.

The ideas behind the harmonious placement of art was truly well thought off and it has without any doubt shaped this rural municipality.

We had the great honour to interview UK street artist STIK, whose work always carries a deeper message and continues to capture the hearts of many.

We asked STIK what the symbolic meaning is behind his giant stick figures on the wind turbines at Utsira, STIK explains:

‘The two giant stick figures are based on a norse mythology, goddesses of the sea ‘Frigg and Freyja’. They represent all 200 inhabitants of the island who use the clean energy these two wind turbines provide.”

Asked about what his best memory is he has taken away from his time at Utsirart; STIK answers:

“The people of Utsira are so positive, warm and welcoming, they know how to treat their guests. It’s a very progressive place, as the island has it’s own mayor and is left to run independently by itself , a little pocket of autonomy in the North Sea.”

Spanish artist duo Pichi&Avo spray painted an absolute norwegian classic which is inspired by the famous classical sculpture Adolf Gustav Vigeland and which represents the lapse of time which the statue through it’s essence of beauty never loses. We quote Pichi&Avo saying:

“This is why you see a repetition of the statue in our piece, which does not change with time. Having met the lovely people on the island we had a desire to show that Utsira will always be beautiful and unique for an infinity.”

We asked Norwegian artist La Staa how challenging their Andy Warhol inspired soup cans were to execute, to which La Staa replies:

YES!![smiles] The soup cans were extremely challenging. It was the first time we were on a cherry picker which was very enjoyable but the strong winds didn’t help us and painting on something that is round and big can be very tricky. So we are super happy with the result as we pulled it off!

We also had the great pleasure of speaking to UK street artist 3F (3Fountains), who has only been on the street art scene since the beginning of this year. He spoke to us about his experience at UtsirArt:

” This is the first street art event I have been part of and to be around so many creative people inspired me to better myself and the things I leave behind on walls for others to see. My best memory of my time at Utsira has to be when me and JPS sat on high and watched the sunset into the sea. I remember us saying to each other how it was an honour to be able to paint in such a beautiful place.”

And finally we managed to swiftly catch up with JPS; who said: