A New Zealand city that has been
devastated by earthquakes is making a colorful comeback.
Just
this past Sunday on February 14th, Christchurch, the country’s third largest city, witnessed another earthquakeat 5.7 magnitude, which fortunately caused little damage. February 22nd will
mark the 5th anniversary of the city’s deadly earthquake of 2011. On
our visit right before Christmas 2015, we were shocked to see how much of the city
center still sits amid crumbling ruins.
Entire
blocks remain vacant.
Lifeless
construction cranes fill the skyline.
However,
as we wandered around, we saw that Christchurch is making a colorful comeback –
in the form of large murals. Street art pieces are taking over the central
business district where vast empty sections and bare, brick walls dominate the
landscape. We picked up a mini-map of Christchurch
marking where we could find street art and other pop up art pieces.
Since
2014, more than 25 huge murals have been produced as a part of Oi YOU! shows,
and at least 10 are planned for this year. In addition, the SpectrumStreet Art Festival is currently happening now through April 17th. Basically, you can actually see the street art coming alive right before your own eyes!
We arrived
to what we thought was a gray and depressing city, but later were impressed
with the city’s vibrant street art scene.
The positive
local vibe in Christchurch just goes to show that the city will go on.
In
addition to street art, the city council has approved numerous other pop up art
projects such as Re:START (a small shopping area made from shipping
containers), oversized armchairs made from astro turf on Gloucester Street and living
art such as the “Kaitiaki– The Keeper” in the Christchurch Botanic Gardens.
4 comments:
I usually find great optimism in the societies living on fault lines , much more so than communities where life holds little danger.
Those crazy Kiwis, there is a reason we call them the shaky isles.
That said it certainly does brighten an otherwise grey environment of building and grey skies.
Hı Annie, that's an interesting thought - one I wouldn't have thought of. The air does seem to be optimistic in ChCh.
Hı Garth, another thing I didn't know! In fact, the construction zone reminded us of what post-WWII Warsaw might have looked like in person. Let's hope ChCh keeps making its city cheerful!
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