Rogers Park’s “Artists of the Wall” Festival is back this coming weekend! The diverse Far North Side neighborhood, which was earlier this year named one of the top 5 neighborhoods to live in in the country, and the best in the Midwest will celebrate its 30th anniversary of the beloved annual event.
Taking over Loyola Park and Beach along the lakefront between Farwell and Morse avenues from 9 am until 3 pm on both Saturday and Sunday, the festival will see the 600-foot-long Loyola Beach seawall covered with more than 150 fresh murals.
The Rogers Park Artists of the Wall festival is this weekend. It is the best place to be in Chicago right now. Get up here. pic.twitter.com/mNVnumuG5E
— SSE (@SouthSideExpat) June 19, 2021
According to the official Artists of the Wall page on the Loyola Park website, the festival was founded in 1993 after Chicago Park District couldn’t keep up with gangs continually tagging graffiti on the 600-foot sea wall.
As a direct response, the group decided to organize a festival celebrating street art and painting the wall with new murals from various local artists each year. “Having the event on Father’s Day weekend would make it a family-oriented event that would bring the whole Rogers Park community out” says the website.
Along with the murals which will be themed “stories of the wall” and honor the event’s history in Rogers Park, there will be live music from 12 pm until 3 pm on both Saturday and Sunday as well as a performance from the Edgewater-based dance company Synapse Arts in the kids’ tent at 11 am on Saturday.
More information can be found at loyolapark.org/aotw.
[Featured image from Loyola Park Advisory Council]