The event at Tampere, which is organised by local Spraycankontrol Association, takes place in a huge factory complex at Hiedanranta area by the Näsijärvi, the 16th largest lake in Finland. Unlike most of the Meeting of Styles -events which tend to take place during weekends, Spraycankontrol hosts the event for a full week. I got to spend 1,5 half days at the spot and enjoyed every minute of it.

The Hiedanranta area is… well, beautiful probably ain’t the first word that would pop into mind, but impressive might describe it the best. First of all the actual area where artists paint is a huge – and I mean huge – factory building, some of it still in use. The surroundings near the lake on the other hand are astonishing, finnish nature at it’s finest.

In 2018 we happened to have first real summer in years in Finland, so the weather treated us all well. Ok, we had a one rainy day (which happened to be the same day when I painted) but temperature was over +20 degrees celsius all the time, under direct sunlight closer to +30. No complaints from me. Although I drank liters of water while painting and sweated most of it.

Meeting of Styles / Tampere, Finland 2018

As you noticed, I only included picture of one complete wall. The one I participated in painting. But fear not, there’s more. Much, much more. Check out the Spraycankontrol’s Facebook-page, FB-event, instagram account and especially the photo-gallery for proper documentation of the event. The place swarmed with extremely talented artists: Asem, Rasko, Fat Heat and Pallo, just to name a few. And not only spraycan artists were performing at the spot, no, there were bunch of musicians included at the event as well.

I want to thank the kind and energetic festival staff for their professional attitude and way of taking care of things. Paints, wall spots, ladders, food, accommodation… you name it, they took care of it. Everything was managed top notch and most of the times immediately. So us artists needed only to focus on what we do best: creating art.