Street art is a contemporary evolution of art wich is well appreciated throughout the world. In Italy in particular, in the last few years, street art has achieved very high quality winning several fans. Not only young people are passionate about street art, but also more grown up ones, governmental representatives, universities, companies and organisations are becoming more and more interested in street art.

Italian municipalities, too, have decided to embrace street art. They have been enriched with street masterpieces, some of them very big, lasting about 10 years. Today, more than 180 Italian municipalities are active in promoting street art, hosting about 300 projects with 30 festivals throughout the country.

The youth section of ANCI (National Association of Italian Municipalities) in partnership with the National Youths Agency and the Association INWARD (Observatory of Urban Creativity) are monitoring the impact of street art in Italian cities and its evolution. For this reason, a national team of street art experts has been established in order to produce an accurate analysis of the phenomenon in Italy, regarded from multiple lenses: cultural, artistic, economic and social. The team of experts will work as a think-tank and it will give a substantial help to municipalities providing them with reports, documents, proposals and guide-lines for all those public administrations interested in promoting street art.

Giacomo D'Arrigo - director of the National Youths Agency - has positively commented on the initiative, defining it as "a chance to promote the art expression mostly used by new generations". At the same time, Mr. D'Arrigo continued, "street art stands out as a way to re-qualify an urban area" usually degraded or abandoned. Some famous examples in Italy are the street art works in Rome, in San Basilio area, realized thanks to the EU contribution.

In a time of change, street art is certainly a new tool for an artistic evolution of municipalities.

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