Kromatic de sant Andreu de la Barca, a unos 25 km de Barcelona.
Nestled just outside Barcelona, Sant Andreu de la Barca hosted the first-ever Kromatic Festival, a bold venture in large-scale street art that ran from June 3 to June 23, 2025 — transforming municipal walls into immersive murals and hopefully igniting community dialogue.
This inaugural edition featured seven expansive murals, each selected through a mix of curated invitations and an open-call process, under the artistic direction of Rebobinart in partnership with the Ajuntament de Sant Andreu de la Barca and support from the Generalitat de Catalunya.
As is often the case today, the festival extended well beyond painting walls: guided mural tours, a children’s graffiti workshop, creative hands-on zones, and a lively closing celebration at Parc Central on June 14 – with neighbors and families in tow. Our special thanks to photographer Lluis Olive-Bulbena for sharing these images with BSA readers.
Urban environments continue to evolve and adapt to the exigencies of population growth caused in part by the exodus of people from rural areas to metropolia around the world. Structural features of infrastructure previously thought of as “modern” is now simply eyesores as people aim to incorporate imagery and symbols of natural beauty and human warmth. “Calming” solutions in otherwise noisy and congested streets and boulevards in megacities include the reclaiming of space and “greening” of areas that were once reserved for motorists.
City leaders and urban planners more often now work with arts organizations to create a new visual landscape for our cities – by creating art programs to beautify spaces. One such project is in the municipality of Sant Adrià de Besos in the Spanish city of Barcelona.
According to the description, translated from Catalan to English on the organizer’s IG account, (@elbosc_encantat_c31), the project is “An open-air mural art museum. An impressive creative forest is formed by more than 200 columns that support the C-31 on its way through the municipality of Sant Adrià de Besos. A unique project in the world with the participation of local and international artists”. The project, while impressive, is not unique, as artists and organizations have been using highway support pillars to paint murals in cities all over the world as reported HERE, HERE, HERE, HERE, and HERE.
The project EL BOSC ENCANTAT DE SANT ADRIÀ, is curated by Zosen and Juanki, and it began in 2016. It is carried out in collaboration with the Sant Adriá City Council and the Asociación Cultural El Generador, with the support of TRAMmi, it is part of the HOP Sant Adrià-Art Urbá.”
BROOKLYN STREET ART LOVES YOU MORE EVERY DAY
