Move over Michelangelo, Baillie Street’s got a dog mural
In a development that has confused art critics and delighted pigeons, Rochdale has been shortlisted for best new street artworks in the world, placing it alongside the cultural giants of France, Spain, and Italy, but with more Greggs and fewer fountains.
The town’s triumphant entry into the high-brow world of global mural supremacy comes courtesy of the Common Walls International Mural Festival, a bold initiative that saw artists from across the globe descend on Rochdale to beautify walls that previously featured only crumbling plaster and passive-aggressive graffiti about bins.
Seven of the festival’s enormous paintings have now been shortlisted by Street Art Cities, a group dedicated to identifying where in the world artists have most successfully spray-painted hope onto post-industrial despair.
