Street Art Tour in Ravenna: Urban Art & Graffiti

We live in an era of architectural labyrinths, shaped by the rules of urban planning—and we live right in the middle of them. Murals and writings on the walls offer a passage, an interaction, a trace, a point of reference—sometimes even monumental breadcrumbs—a thread of Ariadne. The only way to truly find your way is by getting lost: drifting is how we explore our psychogeographic surroundings.

Free Walking Tour Ravenna, in collaboration with tour guide Elisabetta Borda, launches the city’s very first guided tour series on urban art. “We’ve chosen to break the route into two different chapters, each offering a distinct experience.”
The first is set in the Darsena di Città, a transitional area where the illegal and ephemeral nature of street art begins to evolve—taking on a new role as a tool for urban regeneration.

The second tour—by bike—explores Via Tommaso Gulli and its surroundings, all the way to the so-called “Cittadella della Street Art”, on the outskirts of the suburban fabric. The murals created during various editions of the Subsidenze Festival reshape the neighborhood’s appearance and become the framework for a dialogue between individuals and the built environment.

The tour begins in the Almagià area, a former sulphur production plant now fully regenerated.
Here we meet our first artist: Hope. Originally from Apulia, Hope lives and works between Italy, Brazil, and Spain. His suspended worlds and galactic imagination capture the enchantment and emotion of childhood memories—of a little cosmonaut. The piece, entirely spray-painted, dates back to 2016.

Another featured artist is About Ponny, who uses stencil masks and paints simply for the joy of doing it. His portraits don’t always carry a clear message: the faces speak for themselves—it might be Gandhi, Lucio Dalla, or the archetypal child, symbolizing innocence. Walking along the Canale Candiano, we encounter “Il Dottore”, a collective mural created in 2011 by about 20 artists as part of the “Romagna in Fiore” event. A very different vision comes from Dissenso Cognitivo, a Ravenna-based artist collective founded in 2012. We’re not sure whether they’d approve of being included in a guided tour—they don’t define art as a tool for urban regeneration and prefer non-institutional spaces.

Their works are spread throughout Ravenna and its province: wall paintings and rust-toned murals that reflect a controversial aesthetic—scenes that recall post-apocalyptic sci-fi, or intense fusions of the biological and the technological.

Moving toward Via Tommaso Gulli, the first artist we encounter is Pixel Pancho, at the intersection of Via Trieste and Via Piave. His mural “The Last Kiss”, created for the 2015 Subsidenze Festival, draws from his fascination with robotics. His “mechanomorphic” poetics give human emotions to mechanical bodies, undermining their perfection.

Deeper into the neighborhood, we find Jim Avignon and his “City of Memories”. His mural, also painted for the 2015 festival, was featured in a Sky Arte documentary on Italian street art. A German-born artist, Avignon is a street artist through and through—painter, illustrator, and musician. His style takes cues from pop art and comics. The monumental melting pot of Via Gulli evokes a rich blend of identities and memories. We now reach the Cittadella, home to murals by Ericailcane and Bastardilla, an Italian-Colombian couple. Their works, created for the 2019 edition of Subsidenze, face each other on the outer walls of what is now called the “Street Art Citadel.”

Their murals often carry political and social themes, and these two are no exception—both dedicated to April 25th, Italy’s Liberation Day, and painted on the very same date. The locust and the caterpillar serve as metaphors: tiny creatures capable of toppling oppressive systems. The journey ends with the 2021 edition of the festival, dedicated to Dante and Virgil.
Millo (from Mesagne, Brindisi) interpreted the two figures by embedding them into his signature style: giant children towering over miniature cities, blending with the surrounding architecture.

Finally, Luogo Comune (from Cremona) offers a vertical reading of the Divine Comedy, from the dark forest to the celestial heights of Paradise. His impactful mural plays with tones and geometry, condensing elements of composition, design, and color. His artist name—literally “Commonplace”—pokes fun at stereotypes while subtly reinventing them.