Wynwood Map Organizes the Street Art of Wynwood
Wynwood Map is a new online initiative designed to catalog and organize the ever changing and evolving street art of Miami’s trendy Wynwood district. Imagine you’re at the largest outdoor museum in the world. You pick up a free guide telling you about every single piece of art painted on the walls: who the artist is, when the piece was created, and where it’s located in the museum—that’s basically what Wynwood Map accomplishes. It’s a website (not an app) but the easy-to-navigate platform was specifically designed for Smart-phones. Basically, if you’re in the neighborhood, often criticized for a lack of organization, you now have access to information. You can walk around with your own personal docent in your pocket. It’s a cool project.
Wynwood Map was curated and created by Robert William, a local Miamian who loves street art and has been chronicling the neighborhood for years. “We owed it to the artists to create this. Not only to the artists, but to the people in this city who don’t know what we have on our walls. The world is paying attention to Wynwood, so why not show them 365 days out of the year?”
There is no other neighborhood quite like Wynwood. Almost all of the world’s street artists have work somewhere in the vicinity including: Shepherd Fairey, Space Invader, Ron English, Aiko, Nunca. The list is very long and includes just about every street artist, except for Banksy. It cannot be confirmed definitively if the elusive English artist has work in Wynwood. “I can’t say yes for sure, but there is a Banksy boombox/ NY cap stenciled rat at the Wynwood Kitchen and Bar outside in the back patio,” explains Mr. William.
With the world getting ready to parachute into the streets of Miami for Art Basel and all of the satellite Fairs—there’s two things we know for sure: the landscape of the neighborhood will definitely change with new artwork plastered to its walls, and Wynwood Map will chronicle it.
“It really says something when hundreds of artists from all over the world arrive just to leave us a piece of what’s in their minds,” explains Mr. William. “They make this place a must-see go-to destination, every single year. Our goal is to create the world’s largest street art database. There is no better place to start then Wynwood. Plus, it doesn’t hurt that it’s also in our hometown.”
For more information about Wynwood Map check out the website:
www.wynwoodmap.com
~J.J. Colagrande
