July 2017

by Nina Bendukidze and Alix Hughes

Europe’s largest & FREE street art and graffiti festival, Upfest, has announced its return to Bristol on 29th – 31st July 2017, bringing Europe’s largest live arts festival to the streets for a ninth year. The 2016 edition saw a record-breaking 300 artists from over 40 countries attend, painting super-sized street murals, shop front shutters and boards in more than 30 venues and locations all over Bedminster, Bristol.

Georgian street art artist Bacha whose artistic name is Dr. Love took part in the festival last year. He was very successful and was invited to take part in the UPFest 2017 as well. Dr Love on his second visit to UPFest produced an amazing and intricate stencilled mural which is behind the Tobacco Factory. Hundreds took photos of his piece and were fascinated by the detail. Dr Love has been invited by the Mayor of Tbilisi to paint a second version of this piece in Tbilisi in the autumn. The other Georgian highlight of the festival was the appearance of Tbilisi band Moku Moku on the Tobacco Factory stage. Despite initial technical problems and the longest sound check on record, the band hit their groove early into the one hour set with the crowd moving to a familiar sound of trip hop Georgian style. The festival attracted 330 invited artists and over 30,000 people attended the event in Bedminster over the three days 29-31 July.

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