The places of Street art in Parma

Strolling along the streets and less travelled villages of Parma, you happen to discover lesser-known spaces that bear the signature of young local and international artists: they are the places of urban art or street art. In recent years, Parma has launched several projects for the redevelopment of urban spaces that have given us new or renewed places where this art has ... left its mark.
If you don't know them yet, come and discover where they are and what their history is.

Piazzale Rondani: let's start from Piazzale Rondani, between Ponte Caprazucca and Strada Bixio, which in 2014 as part of Parma Street View saw the creation of a collective mural of over 250 square meters dedicated to the theme of the barricades of 1922 and created for the twelve spans of the boundary wall of the G. Marconi Linguistic High School, in via Benassi and Piazzale Rondani. The artists involved in the project were A. Canu, Chomp, Dildo Society, Grozni, Mha Corre tra gli Alberi, P-45, PsikoPatik. Live painting & performances by Giovanni Cavalleri, Common Place, Mr. Savethewall, Pool Hall McLuc Culture.

Viale Toschi: we continue our walk (or bike ride if you prefer!) Towards the historic center in Viale Toschi behind the Monumental Pilotta palace, where on one side of the bus shelter you can still see "Third Landscape" created by the artist PAO in 2015.

Railway station: what is Parma Street View? It was the first edition of the Street Art and Urban Art Festival in Parma which in 2016 saw the underpass of the Parma railway station as protagonist of the third edition where the well-known artists Nabla & Zibe paid homage to Maestro Giuseppe Verdi, representing him - in their words - “in all its aspects, taking the viewer on a dream journey that wants to retrace the past in order to look to the future. Verdi's hopeful eyes mingle with his origins at the Casa di Roncole, just as the labor in the fields overlaps the ever-current and world-wide artistic side. All these images are included within an embrace, against the backdrop of the Teatro Regio di Parma".
Also at the station, in Viale Borsellino, in the summer of 2020 the artist Alessandro Canu commemorated the 40th anniversary of the Bologna massacre, of 2 August 1980, with a mural that commemorates the victims.

Via Trento underpass: just behind the station in one of the most traditional places for Street Art we find a representation of the theme of ecology, which in Parma finds its expression in the #IKEAlovesEARTH with the ecological mural "La città che respira", art project by Others Cultural Association. And for this project, special paints were used to reduce the concentration of nitrogen oxide particles in the air, favoring the reduction of atmospheric pollution, made available to the artist thanks to the precious collaboration of the company that produces Airlite.

Viale Piacenza (corner with via Marchesi): the theme of the environment returns as a protagonist in the mural by Andrea Tarli, the winning artist of the competition "On the way to a more livable and visible house" and who in 2019 painted Natura luxuriant, where the theme of the houses coexists with the environment.

Via Venezia: we include in this itinerary, even if a little further from the historic center, also the murals at the beginning of Via Venezia: they were created along the boundary wall of a kindergarten in 1997 by the Parmesan painter Adriano Orlandi. In 2018 a plaque was placed in memory of him.

Via Abruzzi: returning towards the center, near the Ex Eridania Park, at the beginning of the road is the Pala Padovani. The structure, property of the Municipality of Parma and managed by the Magik Basket company, houses a basketball court, one for five-a-side football and one for volleyball. In December 2016, on the occasion of the Pool Hall Street Art Convention directed by the Mcluc Culture Association, co-organized by the Municipality of Parma - Youth Policy Department, a series of local artists from Emilia and Lombardy decorated the sports facility. And the theme could only be sport, mainly basketball.
These nice-looking anthropomorphic animals can, in some ways, recall the members of the McKenzie farm from the comic Lupo Alberto. Although these designs are out of tune with respect to the others described, they send an important message: sporting activity is also fun, cheerfulness and lightness.

Borgo Serena: and we conclude this journey in the historical center, a stone's throw from Piazza Duomo and Piazza Garibaldi, with Maestro Giuseppe Verdi who is once again the protagonist. In this case he's the inspiring subject of the project Le donne di Verdi which, conceived by Artkademy and promoted by the artist Roberta Musi in 2020, wanted to pay homage to the female figures in the works of the Maestro "in a non-traditional story that takes place on the shutters of Borgo Serena".

Dormitorio Comunale Enzo Sicuri: finally, further from the historic center in the direction of Traversetolo and preferably reachable by car, the graffiti curated by McLuc Culture was inaugurated in August 2022, with which the Dormitorio Comunale Enzo Sicuri was made more welcoming thanks to the project A house for every season. An evocation of the temporary home through the succession of the seasons. Inspired by a series of real images that tell the beauty of nature and the animal world.