Colombia Mural Festival
The Comuna 13 Mural Festival in Medellín, Colombia, is being developed in collaboration with the local Salvajes Collective, born from a mural Parisa created alongside the group during her time in the neighbourhood. That first act of co-creation opened the door to a larger vision: a week-long festival that invites artists from around the world to paint, share stories, and contribute to a living archive of resilience and transformation.
Taking place in Q1 of 2025, the festival will bring together international artists to join local communities in Comuna 13 — sharing stories from their own homelands while painting alongside Colombian artists. The goal is to create not just murals, but a dialogue across cultures about resilience, identity, and healing through art.
Comuna 13, once a community marked by violence and armed conflict, has become a global symbol of how art can serve as resistance and renewal. Over the years, its streets and stairways have been transformed into one of the largest open-air urban galleries in Latin America, drawing visitors from around the world. The path chosen for the festival is located in one of the area’s most vibrant touristic circuits, a space with nine access points that now stands as a model of how cultural preservation and community-driven economies can thrive together.
The festival will build on this legacy by inviting artists worldwide into collaboration, while also experimenting with new tools and approaches to muralism — from traditional methods to emerging technologies. Just as importantly, it will serve as a showcase for artists to express convictions, transmit emotions, and contribute to a model of community development that has the potential to inspire similar initiatives around the world.
We are currently seeking sponsors and funders to help bring this vision to life. While we are doing our best to subsidize artists’ participation, travel costs will need to be covered by the artists themselves. If you’re interested in supporting or partnering with us, please reach out to parisa@artterra.ca.
Rooted in the resilience of Comuna 13 and carried forward through global collaboration, the Mural Festival is a continuation of what this Colombian community has always embodied: art as survival, art as economy, art as dialogue, and art as transformation.
Stay tuned for the Call for Artists.