FLARE Ōtautahi Street Art Festival wraps up, telling the story of Christchurch's rebirth

By Pretoria Gordon of RNZ

The city of Christchurch is increasingly one of multitude, and therefore, it takes multiple artworks to frame that idea of what Christchurch is, rather than one picturesque postcard of the cathedral or another landmark.

"I think now it's an elegant ballerina rising up. It's a cacophony of characters, words, and names across a wall. It's bold cultural discourses. All of these things come together to reflect a city that, I think, has undergone significant change over the last 10 years and has started to show real pride in that diversity."

Christchurch City Council's principal arts advisor Kiri Jarden (Ngāi Tahu, Rangitāne, Ngāti Toa Rangatira) had described Ōtautahi as "dynamic, evolving, and embracing of diversity - maybe in a way that wasn't quite felt or present pre-quake by everyone in the community."

"We are like the phoenix that has risen from the ashes."

FLARE was held from 27 February to 9 March and had featured Kairau Bradley (Ngāpuhi) - or Haser - as a headlining artist.

Bradley was born and raised in Tāmaki Makaurau (Auckland).

"I'm really blessed - and privileged - to be able to introduce Māori into my work. It's a real honour. It's not something that I've kind of done in the past, but through the lens of graffiti, I've been able to push a lot of that tikanga through my work."

"From an outsider's point of view, it's kind of how I've seen Christchurch - Ōtautahi - rise up after some of the incidents that have happened here in recent years. It's just been beautiful to watch this city rise again, and hopefully, my work is a representation of that."

Jacob Root - or Distranged Design - had been commissioned to create a mural outside The Muse Christchurch Art Hotel.

Unlike Bradley, 25-year-old Root was born and raised in Ōtautahi. He's been making street art for almost a decade.

"What inspires me is probably the city of Christchurch itself. Growing up after the earthquakes and seeing how much art kind of popped up from all of the destruction that happened here kind of got me into it and made me want to be a part of it."

It took him about 300 litres of architectural paint, 350 cans of spray paint, and three and a half weeks to complete.

"The idea behind it is pretty open to interpretation. I kind of create works without any real massive concepts behind them. I tend to like letting the viewer come up with their own ideas about it."

"I guess I'm a self-taught mural artist to a certain degree. I grew up sort of doing graffiti at a younger age, and now I do this for a living. Right after the earthquakes, me and a few mates started just painting really derelict areas that were kind of crying out for a bit of attention, so it's really cool to sort of see it progress now and get a lot of international attention as well."