Tape Art

The largest collective work of art at this year’s Summer Nostos Festival will be created with the participation of all visitors -no limits, no exclusions! The Tape Art movement, whose exclusive medium in adhesive tape, has been creating art in public spaces for the past 30 years. The founding members of Tape Art will be at the Summer Nostos Festival, from its first day to its last, to work with all SNFestival-goers.

The Tape Art team works and creates as a group and always tries to activate local communities. The use of adhesive tape as a basic means of artistic expression began in the late 1980s when similar works appeared in parks, alleys, public spaces and abandoned buildings in Providence, Rhode Island, USA. The first illustrations were reminiscent of the white contour the police make around dead bodies at crime and accident scenes. Tape Art Crew has created more than 500 adhesive tape murals around the world.

In their portfolio we find projects of different scales, from indoor installations to works that cover up to ten floors of a skyscraper! The theme is always related to the place in which the work is created and hung, and of course it depends on the mood of the participants who represent local communities. These works are short-lived, essentially lasting for the duration of their creation, since within 24 hours of the last piece of tape being applied, the work is taken down. Tape Art use a special kind of tape (developed after years of research and testing), which can be easily removed and leaves no trace on the surface it was applied to.

A basic parameter for the Tape Art team is to help local community members not only work together, but also engage in a dialogue on crucial issues, find a voice and a place in public discourse, and thus create a better future. The group also places special emphasis on education. For almost two decades it has been teaching in schools, community centers, hospitals, psychiatric units, and groups of people who require special forms of education. So far, through its educational outreach, it has come in contact with 50,000 people, who learned how to express themselves through adhesive tape.

One of the group’s flagship projects followed the September 11 attacks in New York. For five years (2001-2006), Tape Art carried out a gigantic public art program, making the portraits of all the firefighters and airline passengers who lost their lives in the terrorist attack; a memorial gallery on the streets of the stricken metropolis.