« Bali 'Art Attack « Street/Urban Art & Murals at Taman Festival Bali, Indonesia
Street art in Bali? The derelict theme park of Taman Festival has become an urban-art magnet for international muralists to spray, paint, sketch and stencil their way onto the decaying walls of history.
Take a tour with Ubud High...
Mural by the street-artist SLINAT
of a traditional Balinese woman wearing a gas-mask to combat air pollution – and now the Coronavirus – at Taman Festival Bali theme park in Indonesia.
Urban art © 2019 SLINAT.
Photograph by © 2020 Ubud High.
Urban art by the street artist SLINAT
of traditional Balinese women wearing gas-masks to combat air pollution – and now the Coronavirus – at Taman Festival Bali theme park in Indonesia.
Street Art © 2019 SLINAT ('Silly in Art').
Photograph by © 2020 Ubud High.
Mural by the street artist SLINAT of a traditionally-dressed Balinese woman wearing a gas-mask to combat air pollution at Taman Festival theme park in South Bali, Indonesia.
September 19, 2020.
Artwork by © 2019 SLINAT.
Photograph by © 2020 Ubud High.
Taman Festival Bali is not for the faint-hearted. Sprawled over nine hectares next to the beach just north
of the coastal resort of Sanur, this abandoned theme park is now a collection of derelict buildings that houses a
salmagundi of smashed tiles, broken glass, rotting roofs... and some of the most eclectic street art you'll find in a while.
Photograph by © 2020 Ubud High.
'Owlself' by the legendary 'Wild Drawing' (WD)
takes pride of place in the largest of Taman Festival's dilapidated buildings.
The tropics,
tropical weather
and time haven't been kind to this mural.
Top: Photographed on the mural's completion in 2015, by © Wild Drawing.
Bottom: September 19, 2020, by © 2020 Ubud High.
Whenever you see a mural or a piece of street art that grabs you by the heart, grab it while you can – by its nature it's here today, and demolished or vandalised or painted over tomorrow.
Like you and me, it's fragile art with a delicate lifespan.
Twigs, leaves and branches complete the wild hairdo of an unknown woman in the main building of Taman Festival Bali, Indonesia.
Don't think her roots are showing yet.
Photograph by © 2020 Ubud High.
Much of the street art and murals are open to the elements as roofs have been allowed to rot and fall apart. All is at your own risk.
Photograph by © 2020 Ubud High.
An eye-catching, photo-realistic mural of a shark-trade fisherman in Taman Festival Bali, Indonesia.
Photograph by © 2020 Ubud High.
A colonial-era European Empire soldier preparing to bayonet a native is given an anatomically incorrect once-over by a passing urban-art-hooligan.
There. That's a sentence I didn't think I'd write. Street-art by the same artist as the shark-fin fisherman above.
Photograph by © 2020 Ubud High.
Street art of a cool, Balinese-flavoured woman in the foyer of Taman Festival in Bali, Indonesia.
Photograph by © 2020 Ubud High.
Urban art by an anonymous street artist of a 1940s-style woman in the graffiti-playground of Taman Festival in Bali, Indonesia.
Photograph by © 2020 Ubud High.
One of several daylit basements scattered around the Taman Festival site that have become impromptu exhibition spaces
for graffiti, street-art, tagging and... self-exhibitionism.
Photograph by © 2020 Ubud High.
A whale mural makes a colourful splash on the wall of a deserted outdoor building at Taman Festival theme-park in Bali, Indonesia.
Urban Art © 2020 ArtAnnaBronza.
Photograph by © 2020 Ubud High.
Street-art mandala of swirling eyes and fish by the muralist SwoofOne at Taman Festival in Bali, Indonesia.
Urban Art © SwoofOne (I. Wayan Subudi).
Photograph by © 2020 Ubud High.
Another mesmorising mandala mural by SwoofOne of a disjointed fish searching for its keyhole at Taman Festival theme-park in Bali, Indonesia.
Street Art © SwoofOne (I. Wayan Subudi).
Photograph by © 2020 Ubud High.
Film tiga dimensi: The entrance to the now-defunct 'Turbo Theater' 3-D cinema at Taman Festival in Bali, Indonesia.
Photograph by © 2020 Ubud High.
A Balinese ogre-monster growls from a piece of black-and-white street art in Taman Festival Bali theme park, Indonesia.
Photograph by © 2020 Ubud High.
A Jackson-Pollock-style stencilled mural of a human heart beats on a blood-spattered background at the Taman Festival theme park in Bali, Indonesia.
Photograph by © 2020 Ubud High.
Street-art stencil of Mr. Death's skull at Taman Festival in Bali, Indonesia.
Photograph by © 2020 Ubud High.
Casual street art and graffiti on a decaying wall in the grounds of the abandonded theme park of Taman Festival in Bali, Indonesia.
Photograph by © 2020 Ubud High.
Surreal street art of a man with a horse's head feeling particularly welcome at the urban-art haven of Taman Festival Bali.
Photograph by © 2020 Ubud High.
You need to watch your step while navigating one of the most interactive art-exhibition spaces in the world.
Broken glass, rusty nails and snakes are all on the menu. Look before you walk, and take it super-slow.
Photograph by © 2020 Ubud High.
Some of the street art is just cute and colourful. A peace-dove settles on the shoulder of a woman in this Taman Festival mural in Bali, Indonesia.
Urban Art © Clara Fosca.
Photograph by © 2020 Ubud High.
Inspired by chillier climes, a snowman wears a barong mask as a hat as he is entwined by thorns in this street art at Taman Festival in Bali, Indonesia.
Urban Art by © 2020 Ubud High.
At first glance a bit naive and silly, this cubist-inspired street art of Muslim and Hindu Indonesian rice-farmers wearing a mosque and a Hindu temple as hats made me think twice.
Photograph by © 2020 Ubud High.
The conditions inside and outside the derelict buildings scattered around Taman Festival are perfect homes
for the full spectrum of Bali's venomous and non-venomous snakes. Be very careful around dry timber and rubble.
If you need to move through areas like this – better off going around it – throw a few rocks
around first and see if anything comes out.
Photograph by © 2020 Ubud High.
One for the Ubud-chakra-yogi-homies.
Photograph by © 2020 Ubud High.
REM – 'Rabbit-eye movement'. 'Nuff said.
Photograph by © 2020 Ubud High.
How the pandemic year of 2020 makes me feel. Thanks for the share, brother.
Photograph by © 2020 Ubud High.
"Who's driving the bus?" Who knows. Comic auto-pilot street-art.
Photograph by © 2020 Ubud High.
It's difficult to know, and fun to guess, where the art stops and nature begins at Taman Festival.
Photograph by © 2020 Ubud High.
The last 3-D reel: most definitely a turbo-charged art experience at the most-definitely-haunted Taman Festival Bali theme-park, Indonesia.
Hope you enjoyed the show, folks.
Photograph by © 2020 Ubud High.
More Balinese Street Art at Ubud High
Urban Artists in the Wild ~ Bali's Street Art Scene
⇨ An eclectic mix of
street art and urban murals on the walls of Canggu, Seminyak, Kuta and Ubud in Bali ⇨
Photographs by © 2020 Ubud High.
Ubud's Monkey Forest monkeys in happier times as they attack and rob a passing tourist in Penestanan, Ubud, Bali, Indonesia.
Street Art by an unknown artist.
Photograph by © 2015 Ubud High.
⇨ See 26 more works of street/urban art and murals on Bali's walls ⇨
'Wild Drawing' ('WD') ~ Bali's wildest 3D street artist
⇨ Get ready to have your brains blown out. 3-Dimensions turned into 2D, and vice-versa.
Bali's best-known street artist – and master of the 3D trompe-l'œil – Wild Drawing of Nusa Penida, Bali Province ⇨
Street Art by © 2020 Wild Drawing ('WD').
Photograph by © 2020 Ubud High.
ARMA ~ The Agung Rai Museum of Art
Classical, traditional, contemporary and modern Balinese art
Ubud's ARMA – the Agung Rai Museum of Art – is home to over 200 modern and traditional works of art that paint Bali's story in ways you've only dreamt of.
File under 'Rare Left Field'.
'Arjuna Wiwaha' at the ARMA Art Gallery, Ubud, by I Wayan Turun of Tebesaya, Peliatan, Bali.
After killing Natakwaca, Lord Arjuna the archer sits side-by-side with Dewi Supraba as they are escorted to heaven by angels.
Courtesy of the ARMA Foundation.
Photograph by Ubud High.
'Sabung Ayam' (Cock-fighting) by the Balinese painter I Ketut Tagen – another young pupil snatched from the cradle
by Dutch artist Arie Smit to form his stable of 'Young Artists' in Penestanan, Ubud.
Courtesy of the ARMA Foundation.
Photograph by Ubud High.
⇨ See 29 more works of art at ARMA ~ The Agung Rai Museum of Art in Ubud, Bali ⇨
© 2021 John Storey. All Rights Reserved.
The Last Pic
Portrait of the Day
Portraits from Bali by Ubud High
Photograph by © Ubud High.
© 2021 John Storey. All rights reserved.
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The Ubud Handbook
THE UBUD HANDBOOK ~ Your free guide to living in Ubud and Bali in an online nutshell.
Religion Matters
∞ The Tale of Ganesha the Globetrotter ~ Bali's Elephant-Headed Hindu God
‘First stop on Shree Ganesha's round-Asia tour was a spell in Buddhist Tibet with its strong tantric leanings – a convenient spot to re-invent himself as Vinãyaka, and then as the dancing red Nritta Ganapati – before a full-blown alter-ego revamp as the scarlet, twelve-armed Maharakta Ganapati. Now, Maharakta Ganapati was unusually fond of skullcaps filled with human flesh and blood – and this we might charitably put down to a bad trip.
After all, what happens in Tibet stays in Tibet...’
∞ An American Calonarang ~ Trance & Possession on Bali
‘To cut an all-night story short, the mask was donned by a dancer who fell into a deep trance. But instead of staying in the temple, he began to run. And run. He became violent and uncontrollable. He ran for four kilometers down the road – the crowd scrambled after him. He ended up in a cemetery just past my house, and in the dead of night began to do frenzied battle with unseen foes...’
∞ 'Nyepi' ~ Bali's Hindu New Year, and the Day of Silence ~ Melasti, Ngerupuk, Ogoh-Ogoh & Manis Nyepi
‘If previous New Years' Days have seen you waking up with a crippling hangover trying to remember what you did the night before, maybe it's time you headed to Bali in March. Nyepi – the Balinese Day of Silence, and the start of the Hindu Saka New Year – is a day, a night and a day you'll never forget....’
∞ 'Kajeng Kliwon' ~ A Very Bad-Hair Day on Bali
‘Kajeng Kliwon is the kind of day when anything that can happen will happen. It invariably does.
You have been seriously warned...’
Personal Stories
∞ Diary of a Market Girl
“When I had my sixth and seventh babies at the hospital – my twin girls – the doctor ordered me to have a Caesarian. And without asking me, he tied my tubes off as well.
I think he thought I'd had enough babies...”
Food Talk
∞ Durian ~ The King of Stink
“On the third bite,” says one hater, “it was as though I'd just eaten a diseased, parasite-infested animal with a bad case of rabies. I prayed I wouldn't be sick because I really didn't want to taste it again on the way back up...”
Culture Bites
∞ Cinema Paradiso ~ Bali's Seat in the History of Indonesian Cinema
‘Boobs and political censorship have never been far from the Silver Screen – in Indonesia, they're its bedrock. The silent flicks of Thirties' Bali sucked hungrily on the island's bare-breasted cabinet-postcard image that encouraged so many gilded tourists – and dodgy film-stars like Charlie Chaplin – to visit its sultry, forbidden shores...’
Getting Around ~ Bali 'Biking
∞ Surviving Bali on a 'Bike
“For me, some of the most dangerous people on the road are white people. I avoid them like the plague. You can tell the ones who are going to hurt others – the fixed grins, the hunched over the handle-bars, the wobbling around corners and shouts of indignation when they finally hit someone – because they have absolutely no idea how life and the road works around here...”
∞ It's Silly Season Again ~ Renting a Scooter, and Crashing it, on Bali
‘She tears into the traffic. She can't stop. She narrowly misses hitting a car head-on, swerves past a mum on a 'bike and slaloms across the road. Before she hits anyone – it's a miracle she doesn't – she falls in a bad-sounding heap of bent metal and smashing plastic. A group of Balinese rush to pick her up before the cops see her...’
∞ The Other Side of the Coin ~ Just Another Motorbike Accident on Bali
‘She starts sweeping and I notice she's limping. There's a spreading bruise and an angry graze running past her knee and down her calf. She wants to carry on cleaning – I sit her down and ask her what happened.
She's shy; I press...’
Health Matters
∞ Let's Get Wet ~ The Rainy Season on Bali
‘Rule number one on a monsoon day? Don't get wet.
You may not realise that getting caught in a cloudburst or shower on Bali – particularly if you're on a motorbike – is the tropical equivalent of walking naked outside during a Prague Winter after a lukewarm bath.
It'll really slow you down. The shivers, hot-and-cold flushes, a chesty cough, diarrhoea, sneezing, stomach pains, a belting headache and aching bones are all at the top of the list...’
∞ Scorpions, Mosquitoes, Hornets, Poisonous Caterpillars... And Other Strange Tails on Bali
‘Nowhere is free from the tax of life. We all have to pay for our slice of Bali paradise – and this often comes in the shape of our biting, stinging, crawling, flying-insect cousins.
It's the downside of environment-sharing...’
Holidays from the Jungle
∞ The Heads of Trunyan
‘Agricultural, and unpractised in the dark art of handling international tourists, the aristocratic farmer-people of Trunyan have acquired a damaging reputation for aggression. Their unique tourist draw – a jungle-cemetery where bodies are left in the open to disintegrate underneath a magical banyan tree – is regularly shunned by travellers on the time-sensitive tourist circuit...’
∞ Lombok ~ A Line in the Sand
‘Ten meters away and the young man finally looks up – an inane, animal-like grin taped across his face as his girlfriend grips his porcelain butt and grimaces towards the empty blue sky. They disengage like street dogs, utter an invective in Russian, and stare...’
Tourism & Self-Enrichment
∞ Eat, Pray, Self-Love
‘My concentration's shot to pieces. The spaghetti keeps falling off my fork. She's on her third large beer now. She starts to say 'facking' even more, and is speaking so loudly that people passing on the street have begun to look her way, and she's spitting bits of ciabatta bread and tomato and fish into her friend's dinner...’
∞ From Ubud With Love
‘I'm staying at a cute, family-run bed-and-breakfast – a homestay – on Ubud's trendy Jalan Goutama. A young member of the homestay's family tours her compound, blessing it with incense and rice and flower-petal offerings in little hand-made palm-leaf boxes.
All is well in Bali's spiritual capital...’
∞ A Dutchman Goes to a Gypsy Fortune-Teller
‘A Dutch boy in Holland goes to a gypsy fortune-teller who tells him that he is, in fact, Balinese. Afterwards, his uncle visits the Island of the Gods and brings him back a wooden carving of a bare-breasted lady.
Lucky for him it wasn't one of those funny-shaped wooden bottle-openers that looks like a cock...’
∞ The Land of Self-Healing and Snake Oil
‘Shake out those Kundalini Awakenings with some HoopYogini™ and Bhakti Boogie® at the Yoga Barn. Celebrate The Divine Feminine with a splash of Shakti Dance. Puff up your lungs in a Sacred Breathwork Immersion Workshop®, insert a Jade Egg for luck at The Womb Temple™ and polish it off with some tantalising Manifesting And Abundance.
You know you're worth it...’
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ganesha / covid / scorpions / scooter rental / trance / yoga and wellness / hornets / nyepi / balinese traditional paintings / rainy season / snakes / 2022 bali spirit festival / dengue fever
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Today's weather forecast for Ubud, Bali, Indonesia ⇨
