MidTown is ready to paint the town — literally — with the Cleveland Walls International Mural Program. On Aug. 23-28, MidTown will host the arts and culture festival celebrating 19 murals that will be painted throughout the neighborhood, alongside a variety of arts-related programming for the community.
MidTown Cleveland is putting on the event in collaboration with Land Studio, MidTown’s local public art organization, and Pow! Wow! Worldwide, an international mural program. Pow! Wow! has brought its program across the globe, from Hawaii to South Korea to the Netherlands. The organization is known for building community and bringing mural art to often-overlooked locations, and MidTown is excited to be the first Midwest spot to host a Pow! Wow! festival.
“We decided to bring Pow! Wow! to Cleveland and to host Cleveland Walls because MidTown as a neighborhood has always been seen as a pass-through,” says Joyce Huang, vice president of community development at MidTown Cleveland. “Public art is something that will give a lot of character to our neighborhood.” Here’s what you should know about the festival.
There will be a diverse group of artists. The 23 artists participating in the program are geographically and racially diverse, and about half of the artists are local. MidTown’s call for Cleveland artists, which received more than 200 applications, was narrowed down to only 10 applicants by a committee. “75% of the artists that we selected both locally and nationally identify as Black, Indigenous or people of color,” Huang says. “That's really intentional, because the town is this intersection of many neighborhoods that are historically Black.”
The artists will have creative freedom. 19 murals will be painted across the city during the duration of the program. Property owners ranked which artists they liked best based on their past works, then the artists had the opportunity to develop their own concept for the building. This process ensured a beneficial collaboration between both artists and property owners, honoring both of their interests. “Ultimately, festivals like this are really about allowing artists to have full creative expression,” Huang says. “This is really the chance for artists to showcase their creativity.”
Even non-artists can participate in the celebration. Good news for those who can only draw stick figures: there are many activities that anyone can enjoy. During the festival, pick up passport booklets from the visitor headquarters with information about each of the murals, so you can visit and watch them being painted. Enjoy a community barbecue on Aug. 25, check out a pop-up shop from art-activism organization Shooting Without Bullets and streetwear store Xhibition on Aug. 26, attend a film festival featuring a new documentary about graffiti art on Aug. 27 and enjoy various artist talks throughout the week.
On Sat., Aug. 28, literary arts and education nonprofit Twelve Literary Arts will hold its first live performance of the album, In Search of the Land, which is about the experience of being Black in Cleveland. Nearby AsiaTown will also hold a celebration on the final day of the festival. Check out the full schedule of events on MidTown’s website. “This feels like a capstone for us of all of the arts and cultural relationships we've been building in MidTown, and it's a celebration of the history of MidTown as well as the future of MidTown,” Huang says. “Our hope is that people really see themselves in the neighborhood.”
When You Go: 7113 Euclid Ave., Cleveland, 216-391-5080, http://midtowncleveland.org/clevelandwalls/
