The 2023 Manchester edition of Colors Festival transformed an 800-square-metre venue in Salford through large-scale murals, painting, photography and street art.
The project followed earlier editions in Paris and brought work by 30 established and emerging artists to the United Kingdom.
Walls becoming complete artworks
Rather than hanging framed pieces inside a neutral room, the exhibition used entire walls as working surfaces.
Artists developed images at architectural scale, allowing visitors to move through colour, portraiture and graphic form rather than observe each work from a fixed distance.
Jo di Bona, who had previously created a Frida Kahlo mural for the Paris edition, was among the artists developing new work for Manchester.
International names beside Manchester artists
The exhibition included a dedicated room for local artists.
This prevented regional work from becoming a minor addition to a touring production and allowed the Manchester edition to develop its own identity.
The project combined internationally recognisable street-art language with practices emerging from the city’s own creative community.
Its family-oriented format sought to reach audiences who might not usually visit a contemporary-art gallery. Large images, accessible subjects and an environment designed for movement made the exhibition easy to enter, although its promotional framing also reflected the commercial growth of immersive and ticketed art experiences.
Colors Festival showed how street art can change when moved indoors. The scale and direct visual impact remained, but the temporary walls and controlled venue transformed work associated with public space into a curated exhibition environment.