5 Reasons why tou can’t miss MURAL 2015

We don’t need to convince you. Everyone wants to be at MURAL, the annual street art festival that takes over the Main with parties, street food and the live, high-colour spectacle of world-class street artists leaving their mark on the city’s walls. But this year, from June 4 to 14, you’ll notice some kick-ass new developments. In addition to bringing in 20 international artists from eight different countries (with Spanish artist Elian, American duo 2Alas and Mexican artist Curiot among them), MURAL is going bigger and better than ever! We asked co-founder André Bathalon to give us his top 5 list of hot new stuff at the fest.

1) The first two editions of MURAL were held over four days, but this year we’re doing it over a whopping 11. During the first weekend, not only are the murals beginning, but we’re also launching an art fair in the main exterior space, where the bloc parties happen, in the spirit of Scope in Miami or The Armory Show in New York City. It will extend beyond street art; we’ve invited a dozen Montréal galleries to come and show their artists’ works. It’s free, and it’s the perfect way to start a collection

2) We’re launching a project called MURALHACK with the Notman House; we honestly have no idea how it’ll turn out! We’re inviting a group of regular people alongside developers, programmers and painters, and we’re giving them standard ingredients – paint, LEDs, lighting, projectors – and a wide-open mandate. They’ll have a week to collaborate and create a work of technological art that will then be projected onto the Notman House façade on June 14. Come check out the results, it’s free.

3) Also new is a foodie happening called Le Grill St-Laurent, which will happen on the Main between Monday, June 8 and Wednesday, June 10. We asked participating restaurants along St-Laurent to create a BBQ dish, and people will be able to vote for their favourite. There will also be food trucks all along the northern part of the festival, in front of the big furniture stores near Mont-Royal – a first on the Plateau. The five semi-finalists of the best BBQ dishes will come together for a cook-off on the festival’s main site on Wednesday, June 10, and a jury of specialists will give out the prize of Ultimate Barbecuer to the one lucky winner.

4) We’re also kicking off conferences this year. We’re doing a selection of films with our partner Excentris again, but to that we’re adding two one-hour conferences a day during three days, between 5 and 8 p.m. There’ll be a Cambodian street artist living in Montréal, there’ll be Claude Provencher-Roy, there’ll be the co-founder of Burning Man – we’ll be hearing from all sorts of creative people. It will cost $20 a day.

5) And finally, you absolutely won’t want to miss the block parties to celebrate the finished murals, on Saturday and Sunday, June 13 and 14. Osheaga is hosting the first, on Saturday from 1 to 10 p.m., and on Sunday, Fool’s Gold is putting on an exclusive event in Montréal called The Homecoming, with A-Track, to close out the festival. We’re looking so forward.