WOOL | Covilhã Urban Art 2011

Being the direct result of two great passions shared between Lara Seixo Rodrigues, Pedro Seixo Rodrigues and Elisabet Carceller, one for Graffiti / Street Art and other for Covilhã and its history closely related with the textile industry, WOOL | Covilhã Urban Art (*), appeared in 2011 as the first event with these characteristics in Portugal.

Since its foundation, WOOL** set out to use several walls in the city historic center as a support for interventions of urban artists, with the aim of:

  • pay tribute to the history of this city as a way of rediscovering its identity;
  • awake the interest of the community for Culture and Contemporary Art;
  • rehabilitate neglected urban areas through Art, making it accessible to all, in a clear act of democratization of Art and informal learning;
  • involve the community in all interventions and actions, so that they take them as their own, as their heritage.

These goals promoted the design of a specific and unique format and modus operandi, that made possible (and still does) to introduce these new expressions of Contemporary Art as tools capable of great social, cultural, economic and urban transformations in a community.

For this 1st EDITION, Arm Collective (Portugal), Vhils (Portugal) and Btoy (Spain) were invited to create a mural in the urban space, whose process was followed live by the public. Apart from these interventions, the artists also carried out parallel activities, such as workshops or talks, in order to promote direct contact between artists and citizens.
For the global project IOP - Inside Out Project, by French artist JR (France), who intends to discover, collect and share hidden stories through the world by using enlarged black and white portraits, we decided to ‘tell the story’ of former workers and entrepreneurs of the almost extinct textile industry.

* the name is a pun between the word WOOL and its near-homophone WALL.
** co-organized with Formas Efémeras.

Public Art Event

-

Location

Covilhã (historic center), Portugal


Artists

Vhils (Portugal), Btoy (Spain), Arm Collective (Portugal) and Inside Out Project by JR (France)

Workshop

stencil oriented by Btoy (Spain)

Guided Tours

oriented by organization element


Artwork created

10

Artists: Arm Collective

Artist: Vhils

Artist: Btoy

Global Project: Inside Out Project by JR