Public art in Calgary takes on many forms. It can look like the Peace Bridge, the controversial blue ring on the Deerfoot overpass, or the Wonderland sculpture, a popular photo opp in the downtown core. Regardless of its form, public art can make everyday life more imaginative and start important conversations — and that’s what the BUMP Festival is all about.
The BUMP Festival started in 2017 as the Beltline Urban Mural Project (BUMP), with a mission to turn Calgary into an “expansive, open-air contemporary art gallery,” according to its website. Each year, BUMP Festival organizers put together a diverse jury to narrow down hundreds of worldwide submissions from talented muralists and visual artists. So far, the festival has commissioned more than 300 public art works that make Calgary’s communities more vibrant. In 2022, for example, German graffiti artist DAIM gave Calgary the world’s tallest mural at about 95 metres tall.
This year, the BUMP Festival is back from August 3 to 18, and Calgarians can look forward to a bolder, more colourful city. There will be mural tours, a new urban art conference, a High Park rooftop party with world-renowned DJs and a 3-on-3 basketball tournament, a free screening of the arthouse film Chungking Express, and the Trinity Kiki Ball and Rave in partnership with local ballroom community organization, VOGUEYYC, and DJ collective, AMBIEN.
Misha Maseka, marketing coordinator for the BUMP Festival, describes Calgary’s public art scene as an ever-growing product of old and new perspectives pushing against each other.
“There’s always sort of this tension, but tension that breeds innovation — tension that pushes the envelope,” Maseka says.
Calgary’s innovation is also recognized internationally, connecting renowned artists like Berlin-based JUMU Monster and Paris-based Meyso to this year’s cohort of local artists, such as Harvey Nichol, Katie Green and Kat Simmers.
“Calgary is an international player when it comes to public art — when it comes to design and innovation, we are right there with the best of them,” says Maseka.
This year, BUMP organizers wanted to be more intentional about starting conversations between artists, city planners and the public. The result is the inaugural Urban Art Conference running August 8 to 9 at Platform Calgary, where guests can attend panels like “How Do We Brand a City?” and “Revolution, Liberation and Change through Public Art.”
The BUMP festival has something for everyone, and it certainly isn’t an exclusive, pinky-up event. To round out a month of creative freedom, join VOGUEYYC and AMBIEN for a night of high-energy ballroom competitions and divine individuality at the Trinity Kiki Ball and Rave. Maseka says the collaboration was organic, and that it was only fitting to teach Calgarians what ballroom culture is really about — freedom and self-expression. Not to mention that Vogue DJs are some of the best in the game.
Maseka says that visual art can be inaccessible — that people feel “Visual art is not for me, because it’s in a gallery and I don’t understand it.” This event aims to change that.
“I think that what BUMP has done — and public art does — is we’re bringing the art to the people, people who are commuting to work every day, kids who are riding on the bus,” Maseka says. “I’m really glad that Calgary is this weird and beautiful city that has these things that get people to take a second look, or discover something that they might not have ever thought to discover.”