Over the last few years, the Darwin Street Art Festival has been transforming the city one wall at a time and now the CBD’s Smith Street is next in line for an artistic makeover. Local artists are using it as a chance to celebrate Larrakia culture and life in the Top End of the Northern Territory.
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00:00Jason Lee taught himself to paint murals after seeing Darwin's first ever street art festival
00:08in 2017.
00:09And then the next year, that's when I got into it and started, I started off small,
00:15just learning, learning off other artists how to, you know, do the scaling and all that
00:21type of stuff.
00:22For the Larrakia man, art is a way to educate people about his language and law, incorporating
00:27local plants and animals in his large-scale work, with bright, non-traditional colours,
00:32which Jason hopes will help kids engage with Larrakia culture.
00:36The language was nearly lost, but it's in the process of being revived through books,
00:43art, classes, stuff like that.
00:47Increasingly, Darwin's street artists are being noticed internationally.
00:51Late last year, Tourism NT flew Jason and his nephew to Los Angeles, where they painted
00:57this territory-themed mural, the artwork near the popular Venice Beach catching the
01:01attention of locals.
01:02We tell them, well, we're Indigenous Australian, and they're like, oh, what's that?
01:06Well, you know, Aboriginal Australian, like you, Native Americans, oh, OK.
01:11Darwin is the only city in Australia with a mural on every major street, the spirit
01:16of the city visible in every direction.
01:18And now, public art is forming part of the blueprint for Darwin's future.
01:22Every single project we're looking at within the city where we're revitalising areas, there's
01:26going to be an art component that forms part of that.
01:29The first of those projects, a makeover for Smith Street in the centre of Darwin City,
01:34including a road mural by local artist Denise Quall.
01:37The hermit hustle was like a similar, you know, you get a similar experience when you
01:42go down to the beach.
01:43You know, you've got that hermit hustle, everyone hustled and bustled.
01:47Connecting country to the city, the new artworks will join more than 100 other pieces created
01:52for the Street Art Festival, as the top-end capital paints itself a place on the global
01:57scene.