BSAF 2022.

BSAF 2022 marked the festival's confident return to full scale, unfolding across Brisbane from 7 to 22 May. After two editions shaped by the COVID-19 pandemic, this was the year the festival reopened to the world, welcoming international artists back for the first time since 2019 alongside the country's leading local practitioners. Billed as its biggest program yet, the 2022 edition consolidated everything the festival had built over the preceding six years and pointed the way toward the model that would define its next chapter.

At the heart of the program was Superordinary Northshore, a repurposed industrial space transformed into an immersive arts precinct that served as the festival's central hub. The cavernous warehouse hosted a cluster of mural activations along with the largest events and workshops program the festival had ever staged, giving artists, audiences and the wider public art community a single gathering point. Radiating out from this base, the mural program delivered roughly fifty new large-scale works that turned walls across the city into a living, open-air gallery.

The painting reached well beyond Northshore, animating some of Brisbane's most recognisable locations, including Howard Smith Wharves, South Bank, the Queen Street Mall, the RNA Showgrounds and the Valley Mall. The line-up paired celebrated Australian names such as Sofles, Lisa King and Rachael Sarra with a returning international contingent drawn from the United States, Spain, Russia, Thailand, Indonesia and New Zealand, lifting the ambition and range of the work on offer.

Surrounding the murals was a dense calendar of events, exhibitions and workshops. Highlights included the Festival Launch Party, the annual Within These Walls exhibition, Now Is Nigh in collaboration with Yonder Festival, and the international exhibition Tools of the Trade, presented with Hong Kong's HKwalls and exploring the history of street art and graffiti through the artists' own tools. The much-loved Felons Party returned to Howard Smith Wharves, while a greatly expanded workshop program, complete with artist panel talks, invited audiences of all ages to step inside the practice rather than simply admire it from the footpath.