There are many projects around the world that show how art in general, and Street Art in particular, can boost the regeneration of deteriorated urban areas.
Today, not only nature is under threat, but also our cultural heritage which are part of our identity. Thus, 21st century ecology should protect our common patrimony and focus on local cultures threaten by standardisation.
A real development should find a balance and aim an integral improvement in the lives of people, therefore we must focus on spaces where we life since they have an impact in the way we think, feel and behave.
Society should improve our urban environment so as to achieve a more integrated, fair and happy society.
In cities and towns where architecture and artistic patrimony are not especially relevant or have suffered the negative impact of unruly and disordered urban planning in the past, Street Art can have a regenerating role when building a sense of belonging and rootedness in their population.
When Street Artists´s interventions call for attention to local and social issues, they can boost this identity building process and get a positive feedback of their fellow citizens when interventions are top-quality and respect neighours.
This is the case of two Street Art projects that are currently going on in Huelva, a city in Andalusia, Spain.
One of these projects is Wild Welva. Seba Ventana, the man behind it, creates big handmade drawings on paper that are pasted up on walls afterwards. This artist focuses on wild life as a poetic metaphor to talk about humankind and make us thinks about our human condition. His interventions are somehow linked to the location where they are pasted up.
Wild Welva sees the city as a space where animals live and survive, telling their own stories and looking at the people walking down the streets.
His works are realistic and his lines are simple. He uses markers and wax on paper, sometimes with a splash of colour. He pastes up his drawings on white walls, even if he has to prepare them before-hand. This adventure started two years ago and now his works travel around the world and you can see his animals are invading other countries, like France, Germany or Finland.
On the other hand, Man-o-Matic, is another street artist based in this Spanish city whose works are having a very positive impact among his fellow citizens. Moreover, his exhibition, SelfieL, in Museo Provincial de Huelva, was a major success a few months .
Adrian Pérez Vázquez´s style is free and inspired by movie characters, celebrities and others from his own imagination. He works with sprays mainly on deteriorated walls, especially next to a lot where an old market was demolished some years ago. The lot is now an open street art museum thanks to this artist. Neighbours are happy with his works because they provide an artistic and colourful landscape in a deteriorated urban area.
The top quality works by these two Huelva artists grab their fellow citizens´ attention and help to regenerate urban spaces that claim a final solution from local authorities. Thus, we can see in Huelva examples of how Street Art can be a booster when regenerating neglected urban spaces. Not by chance that Wild Welva y Man-o-Matic are under press and social media attention, we will hear more about these two guys in the future.
