Nuart Tours 2019 - Schools Out For Summer!
From production week in April to the festival weekend and onto the weekly walking tours, its been a non stop affair for the Nuart Aberdeen team!
With the completion of 12 large scale art works and numerous smaller pieces left around the city there’s lots to see and discover on the weekly Nuart walking tours. Now into our 3rd year, the free tours give people the chance to find out more about the new art works and the artists behind them. The tour guides have been an integral part of the production crew and have a great knowledge about the project as well as their own anecdotal take on the festival. The tours are free thanks to our partner Aberdeen Inspired who are committed to helping everyone engage with the project and have done some fantastic work with local charity groups like Aberdeen Drug Action, opening the project up to service users and recognising the holistic power of street art.
Following on from the talks and special school tours we did last year, 2019 has seen us work closely with a number of primary and secondary schools in the city including Airyhall Primary and Middleton Park Primary (check out their amazing tour video below), bringing the students out of the class room and onto the streets for an active learning experience where they get to questions and find out all about Nuart Aberdeen but also about the fun side of street art. The tours look at lots of different aspects of street art practice from traditional stencil techniques a la Dotmaster and his ‘Rude Kids’ (students obviously love these!) to the power of words with Ben Eine, contemporary portraiture and story telling with Helen Bur and Hama Woods and that’s only scratching the surface of what the tours cover!
Of course the walking part is also important, the act of exploring the city and doing it as a group. Many of the amazing teachers we’ve worked with have used Nuart Aberdeen along with the Painted Doors Aberdeen projects as the basis for creative projects in the class room with students using Lego to fix walls, recreating their own Bortusk Leer monsters and Bordalo ii unicorn designs (scroll through the photos to see) which have been proudly displayed for all the school to see. The enthusiasm for the projects from these young creative minds is heart warming and a great reminder of why we put so much effort into the festival.
And its a real team effort with friends at Aberdeen Inspired putting in the ground work to make sure the tours run safely and are accessible to all (special thanks to Kate, Angela & Ross) and our tour guides do an amazing job every week both on the regular tours and on these special school tours. It’s interesting to note that the information shared on the tours is only slightly edited for our younger participants so they get the same experience but everyone, adult and children get excited when they see Dotmasters ‘Rude Kids’ on on the old E&Ms building and the tiled Yoda by our friend Abz Jawa, the level of engagement with all the art works both Nuart, Painted Doors and our local street artists has been incredible to see.
Our tour guides Jon, Autum, Martyn and Tracy have all helped to build on the legacy of Nuart Aberdeen and are always encouraged by the positive feedback and comments we receive after each tour. From the massive 350+ groups of the opening weekend to the smaller groups of 15 who come out on a Thursday evening, each tour is unique and its the people who make the experience special. We have to give a special mention to our tour guide Karen who sadly missed this years festivals and tours due to a recent operation, we hope you’re recovering well and we look forward seeing you lead a new tour soon!
With Summer in full swing we have 3 tours available on Thursdays at 6pm and Staurday & Sunday at 1pm, all leaving from The Green in Aberdeen city centre and totally FREE. You can find all the tour information, pre book a tour of your choice or enquire about private tours here. We’re also running a special accessible walking tour on Sunday 4th August with a more manageable route and British Sign Language signing guide.
It’s been a fantastic few months and we’re grateful to everyone who’s participated in the tours and to all the friends in schools who’ve worked so hard to engage their students with Nuart. There’s still plenty of opportunities to get out and explore Nuart and the city so be sure to join us soon and if you’ve already been on a tour, come again as we’d love to see you.
And remember, Beauty Is In The Streets!
