If you love street art, Tirana must be your next destination to visit! Walking around the city will be more exciting than ever, for you will be surprised with a world of enchanting murals and graffitis by the main streets and within the neighbourhoods.
Street art is regarded as one of the largest art movements that has achieved huge popularity and is still rapidly growing as an art form. People have been using natural surfaces to draw and paint on them since prehistoric times when handprints and paintings depicting hunting scenes were put on cave walls to evoke the prosperity and unity of small human communities. What we call street art today is inherently different from the aforementioned wall writings and dates back to modern times, to the war of infamous gangs of New York City in the 1920s and 1930s, when name-based tags and primitive graffiti started popping up on the streets, marking controlled territories by the gangs.
The context of urban art in Tirana has changed too. A few years ago, we noticed the first graffitis around the streets, most of them illegal and a sign of protest to the politics. Now, it comes in a finer form. 2021 and 2022 have welcome the Mural Fest in the city and well-known artists from all over the world have come to participate. The impact is impressive.
You will mostly notice women images of different ages in these art pieces, their beauty, nobelty, delicacy and their innocence. A well deserved tribute to any woman in Albania and around the world. However you will also find other creations and messages these artists want to communicate to Tirana citizens and everyone who walks around the city.
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Sometimes the best spot to have a better look at this form of art is a balcony, so keep that in mind whenever you are staying in a high building or in a rooftop. Have a look outside, for you might find a beautiful surprise.
Watching these murals created, is a special pleasure, as you are able to live the same moment with the artist, immersed in his muse and creation. Look at this mural before and after the finish touch.
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Well-known animated characters are also present in Tirana. An image of Spider Man in the city makes everyone feel safe, right?
