This is a focus post about an urban art walking tour with our friends Dave and Les on 2/19/26 in Ōtautahi / Christchurch. If that doesn't sound interesting, I would skip it. 👋
Thanks to Dave for booking this fabulous tour. It was managed by Watch This Space, and Reuben was our guide on a gorgeous day. We started in the SALT district which was created after the catastrophic earthquake in 2011. While I had admired this paint design before, I never realized that it spelled out SALT. 🤦♀️
The Beginning and the End
From the artist's (a - hum) post: Still can’t believe that I painted this 20m x 8m massive wall in 10 DAYS. This statue is called the NIO statue and can be seen as the actual one in Japanese temples. Originally known as a guardian of God, it also plays the role of talisman. As both Japan and New Zealand are known as disaster nations, I hope that this mural will watch over Christchurch as a guardian deity.
Things have a beginning and an end like an open-mouthed statue and a closed-mouthed one. We live in a big stream where it is constantly repeated.
Replica of tiny grocery which used to exist in the area.
This is Olive who was a stray cat. Thanks to the artist, she was adopted!
This was a cool geometric pattern on the side of a building. Love the door!
This was our guide Reuben's mural which contained lyrics from the song Jungleland on the Born to Run album by Bruce Springsteen. Why? I forgot to ask. 🤦♀️
This was a very new mural from the recent Sea Signals ocean conservation mural festival (you could still smell the paint!)
This as another new addition from the Sea Signals event. It was interesting in that the artist added a kinetic component if you downloaded an app. The app info wasn't posted yet so we watched it on the guide's phone which was pretty cool.
Amazing what was be done with basically two colors.
Mom and mural.
There were also mysterious 'watchers' (in a good way) installed around town.
This artist was finishing up his Sea Signals submission.
I always enjoyed this one but didn't know the story - it was painted after the Christchurch earthquake and was meant to signify both the people and buildings.
Another watcher.
This was a humorous installation from a few years earlier. It looks exactly like a municipal sign in the middle of the busy CBD area.
At 55 meters / 180 ft, this was the tallest mural in New Zealand. It was created with a crane and rappelling painters and was very impressive.
Les and I found this way on our walk home from the tour. Pretty cool.
