"The expectation is enormous, but we don't know how it will end. We will know when we wake up one morning and see the mural of banksy . Or not". The author of this postmodern and viral letter to the Three Wise Men is Edward Hermida . And if anyone deserves to be listened to by the elusive British artist, it is him: this painter from Ferrol launched a project in 2008 that has made the world look at the not-so-depressed neighborhood of Canido.
We are talking, of course, about the ** meninas with Canido **. "This neighborhood had been severely hit by the crisis of the 1980s, that's why I started painting the facades of abandoned houses. People began to come to browse and it became famous. The first weekend of September 2008, I told other friends painters, sculptors, musicians... We have come together more than 200 artists to intervene in the neighborhood . And we repeat it every year," Hermida tells us.
Actually, and he festival has crossed the borders of the artistic and is an example of urban regeneration. Schools sign up, new buildings have been built and old ones are rehabilitated thanks to a brutal claim. "With all those murals we have hidden the sadness that its walls transmitted." Only one thing missing...
When Galician Star noticed the Festival, an unprecedented campaign began: murals in Bristol and London and advertisements in the most important Italian, British and French media launched a petition: that Banksy paint his version of Las Meninas. There is a blank wall waiting for her.