the street is our gallery

British artist Cristina Lina creates a fun and colorful mural in the Cotxeres Borrell civic center thanks to the 12+1 project. The Contorno Urbano Foundation has created a new mural within the 12+1 project in Barcelona. This April the artist in charge of giving life to the wall located in the facade of the Cotxeres Borrell civic center has been Cristina Lina, who has created the artwork “Tommy”. Even though all the murals are kind of personal, this especially is because Tommy was the cat of Lina’s granny. Actually, it should have been quite a wild cat, because he used to go his own way and came back home when he wanted to – exactly when he needed to be fed and his fur needed to be fixed. The artist never got to know him, but she somehow did thanks to the tiles her granny made for the kitchen’s floor in honor of the feline.

The informal, colorful and somehow mischievous style of Cristina Lina makes her artwork flashy and striking; and it can be interpreted in many ways. Lina is British, and besides being an artist, she is an educator, Master’s in art and education by the Institute of Education of London, which makes her have a different vision of art. She works at the intersection between both disciplines and her projects do not follow the logic of any specific category, since her work and activity focus on the public space and the theme of the game. Within the 12+1, she has collaborated with the Ferran Sunyer school, neighbor of Cotxeres Borrell, creating puppets through recycled material with children of the last cycle.

The 12+1, initiative of the Contorno Urbano Foundation, is an open-air gallery that is transformed every month, since every 30 days a different artist intervenes the same wall, creating a new artwork. The project has taken place in Hospitalet de Llobregat, Sant Feliu de Llobregat and Sant Vicenç dels Horts – this last wall is currently active together with the wall in Barcelona. This is the first edition held in Barcelona and the project is already underway for its seventh intervention in Cotxeres Borrell.