Christchurch Street Art

The 2010 and 2011 earthquakes destroyed a large part of central Christchurch, and demolition left something unusual behind: hundreds of blank side walls that had been party walls between buildings, now facing empty lots. From 2013 the Rise festival and then a sustained programme brought international and local artists to paint them - work by Rone, Askew One, Wongi Freeman, Ian Strange, Owen Dippie, Jacob Yikes and many others, some of it enormous. The result is one of the denser concentrations of large-scale mural work in the southern hemisphere, and it is not decoration applied to a healthy city but a direct consequence of what happened. Watch This Space maintains a map and runs tours. The catch is impermanence: as the rebuild fills the vacant lots, walls are covered again and works disappear, so any specific mural may be gone. Check the current map rather than an old guide.

What you actually see

• The large-scale murals - on walls exposed by demolition.
• The international artists - work brought in from 2013 onward.
• The rebuild covering them - murals disappearing as lots are filled.
• The self-guided map - the reliable way to find what is still there.

When to go

Any season; a dry day for walking. Use the current map - works are lost regularly as construction resumes on the empty sites.

Honest expectations

Specific murals disappear without notice as the rebuild proceeds; older guides are unreliable. It is a walking route across the central city rather than a single site. Some works are on private property and viewed from the street.

Nearby

New Regent Street and the Transitional Cathedral are within the same walk.