A journey into Trapani’s street art

The works created on the outside walls of buildings have a huge audience. The colourful paintings often transform disused or degraded urban settings into open-air museums. In the last ten years, many cities in Sicily have realised the potential of this art. It is an artistic style that decorates spaces and creates social aggregation and cohesion.

There are numerous works of street art in the province of Trapani: let’s discover them on this tour!

We begin our journey with the town of Gibellina. The city is in the heart of the province of Trapani, and its name is related to the Belice earthquake. The huge work of art Cretto by Alberto Burri refers precisely to this natural catastrophe.

After the earthquake, Gibellina found the strength to begin again and renewed itself starting from art. It has become an artistic-cultural hub of reference for the whole island. In 2016, a street art festival entitled DeviAzioni took place. The festival shows all the new artistic forms realised in the Gibellina area. One of the most important works is on the wall behind the town hall in Gibellina. It is entitled “Confines” and was created by the two international artists STEN LEX.

We continue southwest, towards the coast, to Mazara del Vallo. In 2013, in the outskirts of Mazara del Vallo, a project of construction, design and investigation began, involving businesses, associations and, above all, citizens. The urban regeneration project is called “Periferica“. Thanks to this multidisciplinary and inclusive initiative, the city and its suburbs are filled with colours. In Mazara, we visit the casbah: here, we will see colourful and elaborate murals.

Moving west from Mazara del Vallo, we arrive at the district of Petrosino, a seaside tourist destination. In 2015 and 2016, the municipality of Petrosino held a competition entitled “Oasis of Art“. This competition aimed to start a cultural and social process to educate people to enhance and improve the image of degraded public spaces.

During the two years of the competition, the artists created many sculptural works and numerous wall paintings. These included a wall depicting Maestro Franco Battiato.

Moving further north, we arrive in the city of Marsala. In 2016, a competition entitled “A mural for Marsala” was held. The contest winner was the artist CRAZYONE (the same artist who, in 2018, created a famous mural in the Ballarò district in Palermo ). Walking through the historic centre, we can admire the work on a wall in the area next to the San Girolamo Archaeological Site.

Our street art tour in the Trapani area ends with the last two stops. In Castellammare del Golfo, we will see the works of the French C215 and the Spanish Tono Cruz. They were created for the 2018 Castellammare Cultur festival. Finally, we go to Alcamo to enjoy the 2014 mural by the artist Ema Jons.