Boon Street Art Festival 2025: Hamilton’s 100th mural a community collaboration

Hamilton-based artist Alice Alva was in charge of the community painting wall on Lovegrove Lane. Photo / Malisha Kumar

Hamilton celebrated a special centenary on the weekend as the city received its 100th mural during the Boon Street Art Festival.

Under the guidance of local artist Alice Alva, the community was invited to give a wall on Lovegrove Lane in Hamilton East a new splash of colour.

Alva is no stranger to the festival; she was a part of the 2023 event when she beautified Hayes Common.

Talking to the Waikato Herald at this year’s festival, Alva said she felt “very special” to be included in a “great milestone in the history of Boon”.

“[I was] invited back this year with my background as an educator to try haul together a wall or design the whole community could work on.”

In the first two days of the festival’s opening, over 80 kids painted parts on the community wall.

“The kids have all been very keen ... everyone kind of feels like they’re contributing to something.”

Apart from the mural milestone, Boon also celebrated its 10th anniversary.

The festival was first held in 2015, as the brainchild of Paul Bradley and Charlotte Chuen (nee Isaac) who wanted to brighten up the CBD.

Bradley said coming from Wellington, he was used to having street art around, but upon moving to Hamilton he found there was not much of that here.

“The city needed some love.”

The completed 100th mural of the Boon Street Art Festival in 2025. Photo / Malisha Kumar

He said it had never been the plan to establish a long-running festival, but fast-forward to 2025, Boon had become just that.

Apart from Alva, this year’s participating artists were Alison Mooney, of Australia, Kophie Su’a-Hulsbosch, of Christchurch, Flox & Sweats, of Auckland, Theo Arraj, now of Raglan, and Te Marunui Hotene, of Whakatāne.

Mooney, who visited Hamilton for the first time, said she flew in just for the festival.

She created a mural on 100 Victoria St behind ArtsPost Gallery.

The design was inspired by a quote from Princess Te Puea Herangi, the granddaughter of the second Māori King: “Mehemea ka moemoeā ahau, ko ahau anake. Mehemea ka moemoeā tātou, ka taea e tātou” which roughly translates to If I am to dream, I dream alone. If we all dream together then we shall achieve.

“It was just gorgeous,” Mooney said.

“That really inspired me to interpret imperfection action together as being better than perfect action alone, and that’s why [in the painting] there are layers, flat and perfect lines, and a mess and contrast.”

Alison Mooney was working hard on her painting when visited by the Waikato Herald. Photo / Malisha Kumar

Mooney said the paint palette for the mural “spoke” to the architecture around it.

The other murals are located on Lovegrove Lane, on Grey St (between Pita Pit and the Sushi Club), at the SkyCity car park and on Alexandra St (next to The Factory).

Apart from the murals, the festival programme also features a birthday party with food trucks, face painting, creative markets and live music, a design-a-mural competition for children at Waikato Museum, a mural scavenger hunt, workshops and a silent disco.

Malisha Kumar is a multimedia journalist based in Hamilton. She joined the Waikato Herald in 2023 after working for Radio 1XX in Whakatāne.