The first International StreetArt Festival took place on August 6 & 7, 2011. After Michael Diers, then managing director of Radio Jade, got the ball rolling, the event team of Wilhelmshaven Touristik & Freizeit GmbH developed a concept for the event. At that time, no one had any idea that the "fixed idea" would develop into a series of events with international appeal for Wilhelmshaven.
The original idea of bringing a few street painters to Wilhelmshaven and presenting their art quickly turned into something big. Instead of just letting the artists paint, a street painting competition was announced. Painting was to be done in the three most common categories of street painting:
- Copyists, this form is the origin of street painting, often engaged in copying images of the Madonna and works by old masters
- Free artists, who are completely free in the choice of their motif, as the name suggests
- 3D artists, the youngest form of street painting, who create three-dimensional works of art using amazing techniques and playing with perspectives.
And so, in August 2011, a total of 24 artists from Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, the USA and Mexico set off for Wilhelmshaven. Already in the first year, an oversized 3D painting by the artist Gregor Wosik was created on Valoisplatz. The children's and youth StreetArt Festival has also been an integral part of the festival program since the first year.
