Capital leads the way in post-pandemic outdoor art boom

Art on show in a west London shop window
Handout from Kensington and Chelsea Art Week
Robert Dex @RobDexES19 February 2021

A west London art festival is leading the way in a new wave of public art transforming the high street.

Empty shop windows in Kensington High Street and Notting Hill will be transformed into pop-up galleries as part of the annual Kensington + Chelsea Art Week (KCAW), while boarded up buildings will become blank canvases for murals painted by art students.

It is part of a boom in outdoor art driven partly by the Covid pandemic.

A report published last week by the City of London said public art will be vital in bringing people back to the centre of London once the pandemic ends.

Other boroughs are also sponsoring more public art with Hackney drawing up plans for new artists to submit work for a scheme paid for by a six figure windfall by street artist Stik.

KCAW held an open call for people to get involved with almost half of applications coming from local artists. They were chosen by a panel including a local councillor and Tim Marlow, the Chief Executive of the Kensington -based Design Museum.

Festival Director Vestalia Chilton said her approach to public art was inspired by working with artists in hospitals.

She said: “This is actually a proven thing that public art or an environment that is better designed can help the wellbeing of patients and they recover better so we know there is a link between wellbeing and art and good design and we all know sunlight improves our wellbeing.

“In 2018 we were already talking about the death of the high street and all the different issues are not new and covid just accelerated a lot of these problems.

“I believe you have to come to your audiences you can’t expect people to come to a gallery.

“I think we are moving away from this idea you have to see art on the gallery space or the museum space.”

Kensington + Chelsea Art Week runs from June 24 to July 4.

:For more information go to www.kcaw.co.uk

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in