London Mural Festival: Street Art, Artists, and Public Installations

When you walk through London’s streets and suddenly see a giant face staring back from a brick wall, or a swirling galaxy painted across an alleyway, you’ve stumbled into the London Mural Festival, an annual citywide celebration of large-scale public art that turns ordinary buildings into open-air galleries. Also known as London Street Art Festival, it’s not just about pretty pictures—it’s about voice, history, and reclaiming space in a city that never stops changing.

This isn’t a single event tucked into a gallery. It’s dozens of murals popping up across neighborhoods like Shoreditch, Brixton, Peckham, and Camden, each one tied to a local story, a cultural movement, or a global issue. The street art London, a raw, unfiltered form of expression that bypasses traditional galleries and speaks directly to the public you see during the festival often comes from artists who’ve never shown in a museum but have thousands of eyes on their work every day. These aren’t random tags. They’re commissioned pieces, sometimes funded by local councils, sometimes by community groups, always meant to spark conversation.

The London street artists, a diverse mix of local talent and international names who use walls as their canvas don’t just paint—they respond. One mural might honor a community hero, another might protest housing policies, and a third might just make you smile with a giant cat wearing sunglasses. The festival thrives because it’s alive. It changes every year. What’s up this year might be painted over next spring, which is part of the point: art in public spaces doesn’t need to last forever to matter.

You’ll find murals that reflect London’s multicultural roots—African patterns on a tower block in Brixton, Caribbean flags woven into abstract designs in Peckham, South Asian calligraphy blended with graffiti in Tower Hamlets. The festival doesn’t shy away from hard topics. You’ll see pieces about climate change, migration, mental health, and youth identity. But it’s not all serious. Some artists just want to turn a dull wall into a playground of color. That’s the beauty of it. There’s no rulebook. No entry fee. No dress code. Just walls, paint, and people.

And it’s not just about looking. People come to photograph, to walk tours, to learn how to paint their own murals. Local schools partner with artists. Community centers host workshops. Even businesses get involved, turning their side walls into canvases to support the scene. The public murals, large, permanent or semi-permanent artworks painted directly onto building exteriors become landmarks. Locals know them by name. Tourists plan routes around them. They become part of the city’s heartbeat.

What you’ll find below is a curated collection of posts that dig into the people, places, and stories behind the paint. From the hidden studios where artists prep their designs, to the neighborhoods that fight to keep their murals alive, to the tools and techniques used to make art last through rain and graffiti tags—this isn’t just a festival. It’s a movement. And these stories show you how it’s really done.