Yardworks Festival 2022
Our first 'full' festival since the pandemic, Yardworks 2022 took place on Saturday 18 and Sunday 19 June and was everything we hoped for: a riot of colour, creativity and collaboration as urban artists from across Glasgow, the UK and Europe came together to paint, draw, inspire, educate, or just hang out and eat fancy chips.
As well as witnessing live street art being created from scratch, with incredibly skilled international heavyweights rubbing shoulders with Glasgow's emergent talents, in 2022 we took the celebrations even further, expanding across the complex and the city.
Closing off Eastvale Place meant we could turn it into an outdoors gallery corridor being created in real time as you walked in. Our two gallery spaces split a unique exhibition between them, so you could go home with a piece made by one of the exhibiting artists. Stretching into our indoor Galvanizers space, Mia McGregor returned with her Cube installation — one of the biggest public art projects in Europe. Out the back, on our new outdoors terrace, we had a new space to sit, eat, chat and occupy the kids with activities looking out onto the gardens — as well as a disco for babies and toddlers in the Warehouse.
And, long after the festival had ended, the art remained for anyone and everyone to view and be inspired by, with murals created during the festival still present on the 27 railways archways leading up to the complex as well as on the University of Glasgow campus (the corner where it meets Byres Road).
2022 artist list
Aero, AKME, Balstroem, Boiiing, Bonzai, Box Vincent, Bublegum, Charlie Anderson, Ciaran Glöbel + Conzo Throb, COBOLT Collective, Ejek, Ellietype, Eros, Frank Carty, Grad, Hungry Window, Inkie, Jo Curtis Brown, Liam Bononi, Lightbody107, Marcus, Mark Worst, Matt Sloe, Mia Mcgregor, Molly Hankinson, Morf, Mr Cenz, Mul, Outr, Philth, Pie In The Sky, Pledge, Posea, Prefab77, Priestcorp, Rask, Rep, Roadkill, Roberto, Rong, Ronny Oner, Ross MacRae, Siguel, Smug, Snub23, Sophie Mess, Sprite, The Unlikely Painter, This One, Tizer, Tragic O'Hara, Ursula Kam-Ling Cheng, Voyder, Vues, Wars, Wilma Van Der Meyden, Zurik.
About Yardworks Festival
Since launching in 2017, it’s safe to say the word is now very much out, with the annual Yardworks festival now attracting the global elite of the street arts and graffiti scene. Highlights so far have included the graffiti maze (200 metres of super smooth concrete and steel, painted live in front of the audience), Mia McGregor’s global-participation art project Cubes, a talk from author, photographer and subway artist Martha Cooper, and the commissioning of the huge, Classical-art-inspired mural by PichiAvo that you see today in our Galvanizers.
Then there’s the guests. 2019’s international artist list included Smug, Does (Netherlands), Insane51 (Greece), Saturno (Spain), Mr Baker (Germany), Balstreom (Denmark), Wellin (Denmark). From the UK, we had Voyder, Rogue, Mark Worst, Gent, Ziner, Bonzai, Sled, Soda, Curtis Hylton and Philth.
For local artists, it’s a chance to learn from the best, meet their heroes, and get inspired by what people are doing elsewhere. For the audience, it’s a weekend of witnessing murals being created live, from scratch, in front of you, child-friendly art workshops and activities, or just drinking it all in with a pint and street food in hand. For Glasgow, it’s a visual celebration of the city’s artistic ambition, its style, and the importance it places on nurturing — and sharing — the joy of creativity.
Outside of the festival, it puts the city on the map as a stomping ground for international artists, who drop in to SWG3 year-round to mark a piece of our territory in their own inimitable style. For local artists, it represents something absolutely essential to the community: a place to express themselves in a safe and legal space.