Lecce | Eyes on the Streets

below: Mary and Jesus on the corner, with murals to the right and murals to the left.

mural with biblical scene, mary holding baby jesus in the center, man carrying a cross in bottom left

below: Along Via Ragusa there is a wall covered by a series of murals. On the other side of the wall are football fields. You can see the nets above the wall to prevent balls from flying onto the street.

older mural on a concrete fence in Lecce

below: Three dimensional cubes stacked on top of each other.

abstract painting on a mural on a fence, including a stack of three dimensional cubes

below: Flying cubes

below: A Checkos, tribute to Juan Alberto Barbas, an Argentinian football player, b. 1959, who played for a number of clubs in Argentina, Spain, Italy, and Switzerland before retiring in 2009.

mural on a Lecce wall, portrait of football player Juan Alberto Barbas, face repeated numerous times, artist named checkos

below: Linked fingers

long horizontal mural on a fence, to arms and hands coming together in the center to link fingers

part of a mural, blue circle, abstract, shape like a propellor

part of a mural, two blue circles, also a partially drawn circle, in orange

I “found” these murals in a northeast section of Lecce when I went looking for the 167/B Street Murals. They are in the same neighbourhood.

Photos taken February 2024

This blog post is a sample of the murals that I found while visiting a section in northeast Lecce around three streets – Via Raguso, Via Novara, and Via Agrigento

below: Dimitris Trimintzios aka Taxis painted this image of a woman harvesting what appear to be olives. Lecce is in the province of Apulia where olive groves dominate parts of the landscape; about 40% of Italy’s olive oil is produced in Apulia.

mural by Taxis of a young woman holding a basket full of ripe olives, olive trees in the background

167B Street is a group that promotes art and community – to improve the look of neighbourhoods and to promote interactions between the residents. It is named after the multi-ethnic residential area in Lecce Italy where many of the murals have been painted, Neighbourhood 167 is a collection of apartment buildings that was built in the late 70’s to meet the demands for social housing at the time. It is also the neighbourhood where these photos were taken

below: Wormbook by Artez,

below: “Mamma perdono” by Sabotaje al Montaje – here a fisherman catches plastic caps instead of fish, a comment on water pollution.

below: Two large murals on adjacent buildings, both painted by Chekos.

two murals, both on the ends of an apartment building, both painted by Chekos

below: It’s their world – Children who are friends in real life too, Andrea and Fatou.

mural of two young boys hugging, with a large globe of the Earth, one boy is white and the other is black

below: This mural is a tribute to two football players, Michele Lorusso and Ciro Pezzella,
who played in Lecce in the 1970s and 1980s. Both died in a car accident in December 1983.

below: Two Great Spotted Woodpeckers painted by a pair of Dutch artists, Karski (aka Roy Valk) and Beyond (aka Roelof Schierbeek) These birds are known for creating the perfect home and environment and for defending their territory.

below: Wish by Millo (Millo also has a mural in the nearby town of Monopoli that I included in a previous blot post – Monopoli’s Millo). Here, the couple are tied down and tied to each other by red strings attached to their fingers. Are they wishing for travel (airplanes)? housing? dreams? each other?

below: The Italian words, “L’amore non è amato” translate to Love is not Loved, a quote that is attributed to Saint Francis of Assisi. The artist, Igor Palminteri, says on his instagram page, “I dedicate this wall to all residents of the 167 neighbourhood in Lecce.
Let’s rise up, overcome all prejudice and open new paths to self-determination.”

bottom of Igor Palminteri mural showing just the girl's feet in blue and white sandals, also the tops of three cars that are parked beside the building

And last, there is a lowrise building in the neighbourhood that has been fully decorated by a team of artists – Chekos (aka Francesco Ferreri), Gabriele Quarta, Ania Kitlas, and Simon De Filippi. The murals were created from ideas provided by a Lecce City project called “Libri per la pelle – interventi artistici di arte urbana” (generally translates to Books for the Skin, interventions in urban art). Ferreri and Kitlas are the artists that founded 167B Street.