FLINT, MI- Twenty artists from around the world gathered to celebrate Flint and paint 20 murals during the week of Oct. 8- 12 for the inaugural Free City Mural Festival.

A joint effort by the Flint Public Art Project, COlabs and Kobra Spray Paint enabled these artists to cover several empty walls around the city with color and visual stories.

According to the Flint Public Art Project’s website, the Free City campaign hopes to “to change the image of the City of Flint from water crisis to a city of creative hope”.

To New York-based artist Magda Love, who is originally from Argentina, “public art is an opportunity to open dialogue, and to tell stories about your community”. She began her mural painting at the International Academy of Flint with a workshop including several of the students at the school.

She asked the students: “What is this school about?”, “What is Flint about? and “What are the things you want to say about your community?”

Florida-based artist Johnny Tarajosu engaged with the community, asking passersby: “What words of positivity resonate with you?”, and then added those words to his mural. More than half of the wall he painted at Legendz Beauty and Barber is filled with those community-inspired words.

For some of the artists that traveled to Flint from the United Kingdom, Argentina, Los Angeles and elsewhere- it wasn’t their first time in Flint. Many of the artists that attended travel all around the world to paint walls at festivals and for commissions, but Nomad Clan artist Hayley Garner said she’s “never been anywhere like it”. Garner and her partner Joy Gilleard traveled from Manchester to be in Flint for the third time and were “so happy to be painting the Gold Leaf”.

In a previous Flint Journal article, the Director of the Flint Public Art Project Joe Schipani has a goal of enlisting 100 murals to be painted in Flint by the time 2020 rolls around.

The first-ever Free City Mural Festival kicked-off on Tuesday, Oct 8, 2019 and held a celebration on Saturday, Oct. 12, 2019 from 11 a.m.- 6 p.m. on South Saginaw Street in Flint.

Donate to this cause and the Flint Public Art Project by following this link or emailing flintpublicartproject@gmail.com.