Looking back at a rather tumultuous year, this year has presented unexpected pivots: a crash course into website design and programming, a significant decision in my personal life, and shifts around my career. However, this project, Street Art NSW, and its soft launch back in September is the highlight of it all. If you haven’t read the feature post, here it is below.
In dot-point form, 2025 looked a little bit like this:
- January: Evaluate what happened at the end of 2024 and proceed forward, begin learning website design and programming
- February: Fly to the Philippines and Hong Kong
- March: Begin working on the Street Art NSW website structure
- April: Start the property journey of inspections every single weekend, set up backend processes, databases and dependencies of Street Art NSW
- May: Process every single artwork into the selected format, move in with friends temporarily closer to the city
- June: Finalise the move, continue working on Street Art NSW, set up a side project end-to-end process to test deployment
- July: Settle into the new place and explore the area, finish working on the Street Art NSW minimum product and explore cloud applications and server management
- August: Begin server testing, front-end and application testing
- September: Publish Street Art NSW, and continue backend optimisations and improvements
- October: Tasmania trip
- November: Sunshine Coast/Brisbane trip, and finally
- December: Hit 5,000 published artworks, and make this post.
Dashing head first into 2026, there are a multitude of features, tools, plans, and big decisions I’m ready to embark on and take along to the adventure!
Newest Artworks
One of the features front and centre on the homepage is a section which showcases uploads of artworks completed within the last 90 days. From The Killing of Canberra paint jam to the Inner West’s Perfect Match street art, the newest works are presented here to garner excitement and notice. What further is exciting that these artworks come from a wide range of locations, scouring through Social Media for notes and then hunting them down. Perhaps I’m not on the cutting edge as a certain cyclist who discovers and posts new artworks quite quickly, but I can only strive and endeavour to do the same!
From left to right, then down: Bathurst, Marrickville, Bass Hill, Camperdown, Greenway (ACT), Sydenham, Phillip (ACT), Marrickville, Stanmore, Lithgow, Marrickville, and last but not least, Rooty Hill.
As a keen early mover and discoverer of artworks, I hope that I will be able to share the same passion and feelings I experience when I come across the artwork, and that we continue to instil our love for the wonder and awe that is imbued within these murals and artworks.
Draft System
Previous endeavours of research, geocaching, and looking through maps have made me particularly eagle-eyed in finding artworks and then planning future trips to get to all these places. This comprehensive list is available on Google Maps and there are over 3,500 different listings to check. Though artworks may fall victim to time and fade away, I still hope Street Art NSW will be an archive to last the ages. The opposite is also very true, scouting local artists, new artworks and the happenings in Sydney and throughout New South Wales and it’s this very map that stores that information.
The future primary objectives for this draft system areas follows:
- To frontload information for artworks and then require only a photo to publish the artwork, rather than scour back whichever social media and add the details then,
- Allow website visitors and contributors to add in their own photos. Ideally for places that I haven’t gone to, I would probably leave them in suspense, but allow locals to keep their areas up to date, and
- Plan trips both for myself and anyone who requests it using the Street Art NSW website.
Expand the team/subscription system?
This has been something I’ve been thinking of for a while now. Is this project a gift to the world that I would continue to share my passion with? Or is this something on the cusp of something bigger? But for these to come into fruition, Street Art NSW needs artistic souls who are just as passionate and/or willing to lend a hand, and also those who are willing to support the organisation as we grow beyond the state and onwards.
As for keeping the website and services afloat, I am most grateful for specific grant support which allow operating and research costs to remain flat for several years. The amount is small, but its meaning is highly significant. Once this project scales up, further consideration into the organisational structure, mission, how we establish and treat our contributor base, and how we collaborate with other organisations will be in front of mind and prudently planned.
Balancing priorities around whether Street Art NSW takes on a non-profit organisation solely for the purpose of progressing and mapping art, or a company founded by those passionate for street art, especially in the grand city of Sydney and further around Oceania and Asia is something else way down the line. How do people be a part of Street Art NSW? Will we have some sort of account system that is either governed by role? A sort of subscription model? Such things I don’t want to think about when the site’s visitor count is modest at best, for now.
But Street Art NSW’s Purpose?
- Advocate towards Sydney as a street art city as well as the broader state of New South Wales and its major cities (Newcastle, Wollongong, yes even you Canberra, etc.)
- Support local artists and promote street art festivals and events both in Sydney and every other major Australian city, and
- Increase our standing as a reputable, trusted, up-to-date, and familiar resource for contemporary and historical artworks, well-maintained by the highest standard of quality control, and grow in our social presence.
All this, above all.
Happy and safe 2026.
jxrdan