Over the October long weekend, we hosted our annual Create Your Place event to celebrate the continuing legacy of graffiti art culture in Muloobinba/Newcastle. Setting up in the heart of the city – Museum Park, hundreds of people of all ages and abilities joined us to learn a bit about street art, Hip Hop music, listening to good tunes and having a good time over a couple of days.
Create Your Place was about bringing people from different places together to teach, learn and share knowledge of graffiti art and Hip Hop culture. For us, it was really important to share where street and mural art comes from, having roots in graffiti art. So, throughout the Saturday and Sunday, we provided a number of free, all-inclusive workshops to invite community members to build and strengthen their graffiti art skills. We invited local artists and friends of UP&UP to share their techniques and skills through co-hosting our free workshops. Several local DJs and performers graced the stage, Deejay Mathmatics, MadMAn, Koopa the Producer, DJ Tone, Top Button Recordings, local legends BLADES. Special thanks to DENNI, Greeley, and Lachy Hamil for travelling from lutruwita to perform.
Throughout both days, we ran back-to-back graffiti art workshops to cater for folks with varying levels of artistic skills. Our Graffiti Masterclasses were designed for community members who had existing experience in graffiti and mural art. For 45 minutes, participants were partnered with established graffiti artists to strengthen their techniques and skills.
Flick through the amazing artworks from the Graffiti Masterclasses below!
Check out this video that covers what went down over the two epic days!
Our Introduction to Graffiti sessions were designed for folks of all ages and abilities who hadn’t previously engaged with graffiti art but were keen to pick up a spray can to learn some basics. A massive thank you to facilitators, Tyson and Jamie, who shared their enthusiasm and techniques of graffiti art with eager community members – talking numbers, over the two days Tyson and Jamie supported over 100 participants during these workshops. You both smashed it out of the park!
UP&UP is all about creating events for and with communities that are open to everyone – this is why we are passionate about Hip Hop, because the culture holds a lot of different elements to it and has the power to bring people from different places and communities together. While the event’s workshops were running at full capacity, community members were able to listen to some tunes from local and national artists, watch and participate in breakdancing sessions and grab the mic themselves for a little freestyling.
A special thank you for to our volunteers, Billy (and Sheepie), Aunty Shelley, Tallon, Marla and Ricko – without each and every one of you, we wouldn’t have been able to host such a successful day. Thank you for your continuing love, friendship and for choosing to be part of our UP&UP family.
Interested in attending one of our future community events? Check out what we have coming up including our SNAK N RAP sessions in on our Events page for the January school holidays! And be sure to join the UP&UP team at the 2023 Create Your Place event.
