Hundreds of students converged on Maulana Shoukat Ali Road in Lahore on Sunday to beautify the city’s walls through artwork in a commendable effort undertaken under the aegis of Artistan Street Art Competition 2018.

Held along the stretch of Punjab University’s boundary wall that runs from the Canal bank to Iqbal Town Kareem Block traffic crossing, the competition saw as many as 450 student artists in more than 90 teams competing for the prize of up to Rs 100,000 in the annual street art competition . The participants used oil paints to display their artworks, painting walls with beautiful creations inspired by Pakistan’s culture, landscapes and personalities.

According to Artistan, the Street Art Pakistan is an initiative taken to eradicate the illegal practice of wall chalking and ‘Reform the Walls of Pakistan’ by painting them with positive themes depicting colorful stories of our country.

Starting in 2010 as a competition, Street Art Pakistan engaged students from various institutes to paint the culture, traditions and positive facets of Pakistan along the walls of Lahore. Until now, Street Art Pakistan has successfully organized seven seasons of the Street Art Competition covering 20 cities and five regions of Pakistan that include Lahore, Islamabad, Karachi, Peshawar, Quetta, Gilgit, Multan, Rawalpindi, Gujrat, Gujranwala, Faisalabad, Sialkot, Sargodha, Sheikhupura, Chakwal, Thatta, Matiari, Hala, Larkana, and Mirpur Sakru.

More than 21,400 participants from 150 different educational institutes have painted more than 4,000 walls (approx 330,100 square feet area) of Pakistan with themes that included truck art, education, peace and freedom, provincial culture, gates of old Lahore and monuments, blood donation, fight against dengue, cleanliness and the culture of Pakistan. These competitions also led to distinguished achievements for the Street Art team, including the largest painting in the history of the world.

Artistan says, “Going beyond, our team strived for the Guinness World Record for the Largest Painting by Numbers with the collaboration of Punjab Government and Master Paints and ended up making history. Our team has also worked with an NGO in Sindh, promoting education in the form of Street Art in 3 districts namely Larkana, Thattha and Matiari. Recently, our team painted the Largest Mural in the History of Pakistan on a single theme, that is, Timeline of the History of Pakistan Army from 1914-2014 (World War 1 to Operation Zarb-e-Azb), celebrating a hundred years of 10th Division of Army. The mural is 30,000 square feet in size, and is painted on the walls of MS Garrison Underpass, Lahore”.