Thursday 4 April 2013

Pøbel & Østrem: Brothers in Street Art


I don't know if Pøbel & Østrem are two persons or one person. Pøbel is a pseudonym for a Stavanger based street artist mainly doing stencils and Atle Østrem, a previous writer from Stavanger,  is now a street artist and artist doing stencils, graffiti and gallery exhibitions. Both artists have a long history of cooperation, and in this work pøbel did the bear and Østrem did the text. I took the photo in Stavanger (south-west norway) and was made for the Nuart festival in 2010. It's a funny piece, but have a clear reference to climate change. A typical way for street art to make a commentary on a social issue.

I love Stavanger, I lived there for a couple of years, finnishing college. I have a lot of good memories from that period. I sort of started with 'blank sheets' there, got new friends, independence and never looked back. After college I moved on and lived 'here and there' untill I settled in Bergen. Nowadays, I visit Stavanger on a regular basis to teach and usually I walk around in town on my free time. Looking for some new art works in the streets.

Pøbel is doing well and have become known nationally and internationally for his work together with Dolk in the rural area of Lofoten in the north of norway. The summer of 2012, Pøbel went even further north to the small community of Vardø. An area suffering from depopulation. Pøbel organised a street art festival there with internationally known street artists: Komafest. The media response was very good and high quality street art creativity did put the small community of Vardø on the map. The mayor of the community publicly thanked Pøbel for his initiativ. After all, "Pøbel" is a norwegian word for vandal

Together with this post I choose The Specials with "A Message to You Rudy" (Click on the link or the 'play' button below to listen).

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