BSAF 2024.

Held from 4 to 19 May, the 2024 Brisbane Street Art Festival arrived as the event's ninth edition, a confident, fully realised festival on the cusp of its tenth-anniversary year, and proof of how far a grassroots idea had travelled in turning Brisbane's walls into one of Australia's richest open-air galleries. Across a fortnight, the city became a working canvas as more than twenty featured local and international artists added new large-scale murals to the streets, joined by a dense program of exhibitions, workshops, panels and artist talks. As Festival Director Lincoln Savage put it, "Brisbane has worked its way into becoming one of the world's most significant street art cities."

The 2024 line-up balanced homegrown talent with artists drawn from around the world. Brisbane icon Sofles painted alongside the likes of Spain-via-Melbourne muralist Guirao, Japan-born Spectator Jonze and Damien Mitchell, who returned after a decade working in New York, with Davis Lee Pereira, The Brightsiders, Emily Devers, Kaho, Lisa Dot and Sethius Art among the wider roster. Their work threaded through some of the city's most recognisable locations: Howard Smith Wharves alone gained five new pieces, while fresh murals and live painting also landed at QUT Gardens Point, The Tivoli, Portside Wharf, Constance Street in Fortitude Valley, the RNA Showgrounds, Garden City and The Barracks.

At the heart of it all sat Superordinary at Northshore, the repurposed warehouse precinct that once again served as the festival hub. Beyond hosting three live murals, the venue staged the festival's large-scale exhibitions and panel discussions, including the annual Within These Walls show and the No Expectations First Nations exhibition, and opened its doors to the public daily. A standout was the Scribble Slam, a high-energy art battle that pitted two artists head-to-head while the audience voted for the winner. Talks tackled subjects from gender bias to the shared use of public space, and the program ranged out across street art cycling tours and hands-on workshops in aerosol, calligraphy, collage, tufting, brushwork, graffiti writing, lettering and sticker art.

Bookended by a launch party at Superordinary and a closing celebration at Felons Brewing Co on the riverfront, BSAF 2024 underscored the festival's enduring purpose: connecting the people of Brisbane with bold, generous public art, and leaving the city brighter than it found it.