Long Beach Walls & Art Renzei Festival Returns This August

Long Beach Walls & Art Renzei Festival will be returning on August 29, showcasing America’s most influential women in art. 

The festival will take place outdoors and is free and open to the public. It will span over a week, starting on Monday, August 29, with 24/7 viewing of mural art, food tasting, bike tours, and a KCRW Summer Nights Closing Party complete with headlining DJs from the stations top female radio personalities, wrapping up on Sunday, September 4. 

This year’s theme is ‘Stand Up.’ “It unites an ambitious series of experiential outdoor installations and interactive events that celebrate the diversity, spirit, and vision of women in art,” Long Beach Walls and Art Renzei said in a press release.

The art festival will be presented in connection with Creative Collective which is formed and supported by Intertrend Communication. Its mission is to encourage new and innovative ideas through various creative outlets to help elevate the community and assist economic viability. 

“I always said PowWow Long Beach, now LB Walls, is a love letter to the City. I still feel the same way. We wanted to bring an international mural event to Long Beach. By doing so, artists worldwide interacted with local artists and art lovers. When we first brought PowWow Long to Long Beach, graffiti art was misunderstood as a problem in an urban setting. Since then, people have seen how it can play a role in place-making by beautifying an environment,” said founder and CEO of Intertrend Communication, Julia Huang.

Huang continued on the power of art and the difference creative outlets make in our society, “The intrinsic value of how art and culture can enrich our lives have been documented by many. I want to focus on the importance of making art accessible to all. It goes both ways. Appreciating and supporting art should not be reserved for a limited few.”

Each artist is given the opportunity to showcase their art outdoors throughout the city, with the lineup of artists in the 2022 festival being: Mr. B Baby, Kim Seilbeck, Mara Bubblegum, Karina Vazquez, Alepsis Hernandez, Thao Huynh French, Anat Ronen, Imagine, Mer Young, Jocelyn Tsaih, Olga Lah, Debra Scacco and Amanda Yamashita.

Long Beach Walls and KCRW Summer Nights will also be working together for their second year to host the Summer Nights Closing Party with music played by KCRW’s female DJs Valida and Wyldeflower, along with food trucks, and a beer garden.

The International Mural Festival will be open Monday, August 29 through Sunday September 4. The festival is open from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. daily.

There will be active mural paintings and activities with event partners every day.

The closing party programming starts at 2 p.m. on Sunday, September 4 and the KCRW Summer Nights Closing Dance Party is from 6 p.m. to 10 p.m.

To learn more details about the festival visit www.longbeachwalls.com and www.artrenzei.com

By: Linda Mai

Photo courtesy of Long Beach Walls and Art Renzei Festival