Whitecross Street Party returns for 2017 with street art, live music and performance art

The Whitecross street party returned for 2017 and once again contained a mixture of street art, music and performance art which gives this family friendly festival a unique vibe.

We’ve covered the event for the past few years here on Inspiring City and although there have been some tinkering around the edges, it’s remained pretty consistent throughout. The street itself transforms with its tributaries turned into a combination of mini stages and art hangouts where the artists paint square boards with the intention that after the event, they will be erected on the side of buildings overlooking the street.

Elsewhere on the street performance art took place in the form of an alternative fashion show and the band ‘Fear of Fluffing‘ returned to give passers by an experience in psychedelic street jamming. Meanwhile Filthy Luker’s giant trash monster which first made an appearance in 2015 returned. It’s a popular giant inflatable balloon with rubbish pasted all over it and trash can lids for eyes. It even caught the attention of Islington South and Finsbury MP Emily Thornberry who could be seen posing for pictures next to it.

In the streets prpular art gallery the Curious Duke Gallery, more live art took place with fine artist Louise McNaught painting one of her bees and Roy’s People live creating some of his installations. We always enjoy popping in here but this time also had an alternative motive as, in addition to seeing live art of course, we wanted to catch up with Roy to speak to him about his impending art fair, more on that though for a later post.

In terms of street art then as usual we came across artists both familiar to us and many whose work we hadn’t seen before. The likes of Airborne Mark, Frankie Strand, Guisi Tomasello, Perspicere, Ben Oakley, Yvonne Wayling, Josh Jeavons and Jane Mutiny having graced the pages of this blog a number of times. We also met a few new artists, for us at least, such as the talented Romanian duo Krum Bagelsky and Vesna Parchet.

So July is certainly proving itself as the month for festivals with Meeting of Styles recently as well as the Blackburn open walls festival we covered last week. Whitecross Street is one of our favourites though, it’s relaxed, family friendly and a lot of fun.

The Whitecross Street party took place on Saturday 15 July 2017 and all photographs were taken at the event. For previous posts featuring the Whitecross street party check out these from 2016, 2015 2014 and 2013. For events taken place afterwards have a look at these from 2018 and 2019.

Whitecross Street Party 2017 Gallery – The artists