A bike ride around the city to discover street art, among regenerated spaces, messages of peace, legality and environmental sustainability and redevelopment. Foggia hosted the first “Mural Tour”, a cycle walk to make the masonry works attractive and discover artistic corners of the city.
“I really didn’t know this…”. At the second stage, already the discovery. Because on foot or by bike, the city hides fewer secrets than those it manages to hide from those who cross it by car. And (re)revealing the beauties of Foggia by admiring the street art works is precisely one of the objectives achieved by the first “Mural Tour” by bicycle.
The tour
A cycle walk to admire corners of Foggia regenerated by works of art and wall frescoes. A taste of the potential that street art can become, such as nearby Stornara, a tourist attraction and, why not, cycle tourism.
In Foggia, dozens of people tried it on Sunday 9 June, to observe the city with different eyes. First, the gathering in Piazza Cavour, where the stand of Aido (Italian Organ Donation Association), partner of the “pedal of the heart”, was set up. Then, the start of the initiative – sponsored by the Municipality within the “Foggia in Bici” calendar of events – and promoted by Cicloamici Foggia Fiab, Funny Bike and D!Vento (particularly active in recent months with the project ‘La via libera ‘).
The works
A ride – mostly on a cycle path – which allowed you to wander through districts, neighborhoods and, above all, murals. All harbingers of positive messages. Parties with the homage to Paolo Rossi and his mosaic as part of the “POP…lar, beautiful and intelligent houses” to regenerate the suburbs, moving on to moving murals to Maya, Luigi and Daniele (three activists who are no longer with us, celebrated by an entire community). It’s still, “Chile”, probably the oldest of the murals in the city (1976), a hymn to post-coup peace in the Latin American country and the Urban Tales, urban stories part of a project from over ten years ago focused on environmental and sustainable issues.
Unmissable, the passage to the Zingarelli school to observe the characteristic ‘Ecomural of caps‘ signed by Oscar Olivares: an example of creative recycling that already has its following a few hundred meters further on, thanks to the Muraart now under construction.
READ ALSO: In Foggia the Eco-mural of caps: a work of art between recycling and creative reuse
And again, identifying murals like the Geppetto from Cepa work dedicated to Savino, a craftsman from the neighborhood to whom his son Giulio dedicated an artistic memory or Romantic geometries of the San Lorenzo school, which enliven and cheer up the sight and soul of the students upon entering the institute.
(Cycle) tourism
And then, the triptych of works in the area Candelaro – from the tongue-in-cheek mafia in Oliviero Toscani’s work to the sacred homage to San Giovanni Bosco and the invitation to mammography screening with the dedication to Saint Agatha -, to close with the mural by Zeman, the Bohemian coach who wrote a piece of Capitanata football history (and beyond). Finally, the redeveloped ‘Piazza Tavuto’ and the final message, with the visit to the Art Gallery, on whose facade Agostino Iacurci, from Foggia, and one of the most appreciated exponents of street art, worked.
A participatory tour, as an ideal opportunity to get around Foggia on two wheels and discover the beauty and redevelopment of some areas through street art and murals which, as already happens in other cities, can also become a (cycle) tourist attraction.
