The Cruïlla Festival presents a new edition focused on Barcelona’s art and culture

Cruïlla Festival returns from July 8th to 11th, and in this 16th edition, it strengthens its bond with Barcelona through the slogan “Cruïlla es casa” (Cruïlla is home). For this reason, art is not just an add-on; it is an experience that inhabits every corner of the festival and gives a voice to local talent. From visual arts to volumetric interventions, expanding into popular culture and urban art.

ARTS Cruïlla will create a circuit of installations and interventions within the festival grounds, transforming it into an open house where the city is perceived through pathways, encounters, and shared spaces. In this way, the festival becomes an artistic experience in Barcelona where tradition and contemporaneity coexist.

Poblenou Urban District has been selected to lead the curatorial proposal for the artists from different disciplines who will intervene during the event, bringing diverse perspectives and creative languages to the central theme.

INSTALLATIONS

This year’s installations, created by artists connected to La Plataforma gallery, fill the festival with corners full of neighborhood essence and community spirit, turning Cruïlla into a shared home.

Ricard Aymar: Simbiosi (Symbiosis) plays with the idea of home as a space that moves and transforms. Two structures, one made of wood and the other of iron, merge and coexist, as if they were two houses sharing the same space.

Sònia Toneu: Habitar el fragment (Inhabiting the fragment) takes the idea of home and sets it in motion: an open, living space that is never fully finished. More than a place, it is a shared landscape that keeps transforming.

Aleix Font: La casa desplegada (The unfolded house). The idea of home is dismantled and expanded: it stops being a closed space to become an open surface without boundaries.

La Escola d’Art d’Olot will develop an intervention linked to the idea of the city as a habitable space, working with architectural structures and domestic elements.

CALIDOS is dedicated to the design and construction of interactive artistic light installations, conceived for festivals, brands, and international events. Once again, they present Hexx One, a LED tunnel synchronized with the festival’s music.

Marina Salazar (No Queda Tinte) will create a sculpture in which she reclaims domestic elements and popular iconography to transform them into a representation of what it means to “feel at home,” blending kitsch aesthetics and humor.

MURALISTS

MEDIANERAS is the artist duo formed by Vanesa Galdeano and Analí Chanquía. For the festival, they will intervene on one of the walls with an anamorphic mural that will create a space for dialogue, referencing the walls between neighbors, understood as surfaces for encounters and symbolic negotiation.

The GarGar Festival of Murals and Rural Art of Penelles promotes community involvement, regional revitalization, and the construction of a shared cultural identity. It will participate in the Cruïlla Festival with the protest graffiti of Werens and the fusion of figuration and abstraction by Irene López León.

Alberto León will connect his urban art with the festival experience, bringing the singers onto the wall and uniting painting, the streets, and the live experience. As a paste-up artist, he will develop interventions linked to the language of expanded urban art, integrating painting, volume, and spatial presence.

The Windows Art Circuit (WAC), promoted by Poblenou Urban District, is an annual circuit that allows the public to experience the creation process of mural and plastic art live in unconventional spaces. The artists selected for this edition of the Cruïlla Festival are KST, Plain Jein, and Vale Wilson, who will create a 36-meter collective mural.

Urban Art Contest by YAMAHA 2026

An initiative where emerging and established talent meet to fuse music and art.

We present to you the 12 artists selected through the Urban Art Contest by YAMAHA to illustrate the festival’s headliners live: Antón Seoane, Awakami, Calde, Cecilia Astiazaran, El Rey de la Ruina, Eva Vilaplana, KAOS, Javier Dirty, Malpegados, Pep Walls, Toni Obra, Nuria Valcarcel.

Popular Culture

Once again, Cruïlla brings the spirit of the public square and street culture to the festival. In this edition, the celebration grows with some very special guests: els Gegants (the Giants). Organized by the Federació d’Entitats de Cultura Popular i Tradicional de Barcelona Vella and La Casa dels Entremesos, this proposal highlights Barcelona’s tradition and folklore.

In this way, the Cruïlla Festival consolidates itself as an event that goes far beyond music, becoming a comprehensive experience that highlights creativity, collaboration, and the culture of Barcelona.

Photos by Sergi Barnet