Street art at ULB

It is official: Brussels has a new fresco to add to its collection, and it is beautiful!

The city is already proud of the graffiti and frescos all around its streets, walls and corners, depicting famous comic characters, picturesque scenes or suggestive images. It even offers to its citizens and visitors several guides and advice on the best itineraries to admire the unconventional pieces of art spread in the city.

The new fresco above mentioned is decorating one of the sides of the ULB university, in Solbosch Campus, bulging H (Avenue Franklin Roosevelt 50). The Université Libre de Bruxelles (ULB) and the City itself started a project call in May 2017, to find the perfect artist to give new life to the grey building and to incorporate the new masterpiece in the Street Art Trail. More than 84 candidates have been selected and admitted to the first round of evaluation, but only four got to the finals. To decide who would have had the honor, both ULB students and professors voted for their favorite proposal.

The winner is Gola Hundun, an Italian artist who earned the majority of votes, more than 2000 in the whole university! The piece he decided to create is called “Causa Prima” (“Main Cause”). It is an abstract piece, representing a bright orange red sun -in the exact centre of the building’s corner- surrounded by leaves, branches and natural elements. It represents the stream of life, the impulse of growth and creation, that inspire and enhance the cultural and fecund atmosphere of the university.

 

Gola’s sculptural work and performance often represent themes and topics dear to him.  He is interested in showing different aspects of the relationship between human beings and the rest of biosphere, exploring themes such as collaboration vs domination, genetic industry, shamanism, vegetarianism, energies and mysticism. His influences come from cartoons and video games to the post-human culture and psychedelic art. His many trips around the world keep changing his perception and style.

Therefore, the project adds significant elements and topics to Brussels’ collection of murals, vividly underlining the importance of the relationship between man and nature and the influence that the two counterparts have on each other. The mural plays an important role not just on the artistic side of the city, but also on the more actual and political one; it reminds people that it is necessary to keep a balance between man and nature, respecting the environment and protecting it, to be able to live a balanced and fulfilling life.