City Reports – Hasselt, Belgium

We were very lucky to be invited to Hasselt, Belgium by the city’s tourist board to enjoy the weekend and capture the street art Hasselt’s has to offer. The municipality of Hasselt and “Street Art Festival” have been collaborating together to help invite artists and create amazing murals for the last 8 years.

Hasselt is a small city of only 77,000 habitants in the Limburg Region of Belgium. Street Art has become one the most important tourist attractions of the city for the last couple years. The city is known for having the first ‘legal’ graffiti walls in Belgium that allowed local and visiting artists to leave their mark. These legal walls opened up the street art scene in Hasselt, which is now receiving recognition for being the oldest street art city in the nation.  

During our weekend, we met with Karolien, who is responsible for organising Street Art Tours around the city. She took us on a cycling tour around some of the most notable pieces in the city. The likes of Pichiavo, Inti, ROA and Felipe Pantone can been seen across the city amongst many other renowned local and international artists.

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Work by Inti from Chile, organised by Street Art Festival.

Work by Smates from Belgium, organised by Street Art Festival.

Work by Felipe Pantone in 2017, organised by Street Art Festival

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We also we met with Kurt from “Street Art Festival” who has, with Hasselt’s department of culture, organised most of the street art in Hasselt. We interviewed him and asked about organizing street art for almost a decade, process of obtaining walls and what the future lies for the city’s street art scene.

Here is a hero video of our weekend in Hasselt – it includes a little interview with Kurt and many brilliant murals from artists all over the world.

We want to thank everyone that we met during the weekend and a special mention to Sarah from Visit Hasselt for inviting us and taking great care of us! It was a pleasure and we highly recommend visiting Hasselt, an amazing city for any street art fan.