Edgar Mueller the internationally renowned street artist has been commissioned as part of the InTRANSIT Festival to create a large-scale 3D illusion painting on Portobello Square, W10. Titled “Evolution” the design will transform the square into an interactive public artwork. From July 16 – 31 the public can actively place themselves within the finished artwork and become part of the fantastical illusion.
Mueller received world fame when with through his incredible street paintings and captivating time lapse videos that capture the painting process – now seen online more than six million times. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3SNYtd0Ayt0)
The work heralds the return of the InTRANSIT festival (13 – 27 July). The only festival to move its audience physically as well as mentally, the festival brings the very best international and UK contemporary arts to streets, hidden spaces and parks of the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea throughout the month of July. Most InTRANSIT events are FREE.
InTRANSIT is programmed by the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea in association with leading arts organisations, including Chelsea Theatre, Hide&Seek and ReThinking Cities.
InTRANSIT highlights [full listings below] include:
• Portobello Square, Tavistock Road transformed by famous 3D street artist Edgar Mueller (on site from 16 July) and unveiled on 14 July as a culmination to Portobello Road Arts Day.
• Artists Louise Ashcroft and Fritha Jenkins lead a procession of artists and visitors from Paddington Basin to the Chelsea Embankment for Vessel – a newly-commissioned site-specific work – as they follow the lost River Westbourne. Canal water, holy water, lake water, fountain water, designer bottled water; each source of the river will be reflected upon by an artist, musician or academic whose practice relates to its site. Revellers are invited to join the procession and help with the filling and carrying of the vessel.
• RBKC Parkour – an interactive first-person game featuring film material shot over Kensington and Chelsea’s rooftops by freerunner Karen Palmer.
• Join Hide&Seek for Sandpit at Holland Park – an afternoon of new games designed by artists, musicians, writers and more. Hide from your rivals, plot with your friends, or take part in a competitive picnic. The games will be all about spectacle and movement, so expect processions, performance, frantic bolting-about for the energetic, thinking games for the cerebral, and walking games for the more sedate.
• RBKC Bikeminded and InTRANSIT festival team up with the Exquisite Folly Theatre to create an Alice in Wonderland-themed bike tour around the Borough – with a dark twist.
Cllr Nick Paget-Brown, Cabinet Member with responsibility for the arts, said:
“This year’s InTRANSIT Festival provides fresh experiences and encounters with some of the Royal Borough’s most recognised and hidden spaces through the work of local and international artists and performers. The Festival is an integral part of the Borough’s on-going culture service programme and our commitment to the role arts and culture have to play in making Kensington & Chelsea one of the best places to live, work and visit.”