The very first mural in Astana appeared as part of our festival back in 2017. "Postcard from Astana" is located at Beibetshilik Street 1 and tells about the history of the city. Back then the public positively assessed the mural, which gave impetus to the development of street art in the urban space of Astana.
The main initiator of the festival was the akimat of the Saryarka district and in it all the objects of Urban Art Astana are located. Thanks to the balanced policy of the district as for the first time in Kazakhstan the festival applied a special procedure for involving urban residents in making decisions regarding the appearance of the capital.
Thus, the system of selection of sketches for the festival is a special pride of Urban Art Astana. On average, it took six months and includes: an open competition for artists, selection of a professional jury, online voting of residents, focus groups, a town planning council and, of course, coordination with residents of specific houses.
In just three years of the festival, more than 300 sketches were received from 140 artists from 26 countries. During this time, 14 monumental objects of contemporary art were created.
Our authors: Kostya Zmogk, Eugene Ches. Aigerim Ospan, Doxa art group, Kadmiy Krasny, Alexandra Kalacheva, Dmitryi Levochkin, Air_g_art, Samir Salakhov, Maxim Revansh, Cross team, Damir Bozick Art, 310 art group, Ilya Sokolov, Askhat Akhmedyarov, Nikita Khodak and Rinat Abdrakhmanov.
The constant partner of the festival was the company Tikkurila, because of which we never worried about the quality of the material and we managed to optimize the budget of the festival.
Also, we recognise our international partners Ukrainian festival Mural Social Club and the French art association Apollonia. In addition, the Centre for Urban Studies in Astana was a constant and important collaborator in urban transformation.
We were awarded the attention of Kazakhstani and world media, so the project "Sultandar" and "Collage on the theme of nature" were included in the Street Art News digest. Our curator Olya Vesselova was invited to speak about the experience of Urban Art Astana at the international conference on urban culture in Riga Medicines for worlds ghettos, the International Architectural Congress for the 20th anniversary of Astana and at the TEDxAstana conference.