Street Art in Lodz, Poland

Over the last few years, the Polish city of Lodz, is slowly transforming into a permanent exhibition of street art in public spaces. It started in 2009, when Urban Forms Foundation was formed. The foundation proposed a plan to the city council to saturate the cityscape with creative murals that would improve the current image of Lodz giving it a truly artistic and original value. The basic idea is to create large paintings directly on the facades of buildings in the city center by prominent artists from around the world. With the support of Mayor Hanna Zdanowska and the Ambassador of Spain in Poland, the foundation roped in the finest street artists including Aryz, M-City, Remed, Chazme, Sepe, SatOne, Etam Cru, and Kenor. There are already 21 murals scattered around the city that can all be viewed in a few hours of walking and exploring.

“People who are living in this city are thinking that Lodz is generally dirty, grey, destructed and neglected”, says Michal Biezynski, the director of Urban Forms Foundation. “This kind of project brings something new for the city aesthetic, new artistic quality which is trying to change the everyday image of the city. We’re the only artistic project co-financed by the city which leaves it’s permanent mark in the public space in Lodz.”