Name and Occupation

“It’s not about ethics. It’s based on absolute freedom from the system, you take a can and spray. ” Unknown Writer

Interview

Name: Dries1     Occupation: Co-Founder   City: Amsterdam

Paint and Beer festival started in 2006 at Villa Friekenz, an Amsterdam squat. No corporate sponsors. No gatekeepers. Just artists, beer, and walls that needed painting.

The model worked. The festival grew. Now it draws 100+ international artists annually for graffiti jams, street art installations, and live performances. Still no corporate money. Still run entirely by the people who show up to make it happen.

The festival operates on absolute freedom. Artists arrive. Breweries set up on-site brewing sessions. Food stalls appear. DJs play. People paint walls while drinking craft beer brewed fifty feet away.

Kids get paste-up workshops, sticker stations, stencil tutorials, beginner graffiti basics. Families show up. The community shows up. Everyone’s welcome.

The do it yourself structure means the organisers handle everything—logistics, execution, cleanup. No event management company. No marketing budget. Word spreads through the community and Instagram. That’s the promotion.

“Absolute freedom from the system.” That quote defines it. The festival exists outside commercial structures. No sponsors means no sponsor demands. No admission fees means no financial pressure to maximize attendance. Artists paint what they want, where they want, how they want.

The locations matter. Paint and Beer happens in Amsterdam‘s edgy, neglected spaces. Abandoned buildings. Underutilized lots. Places the city hasn’t figured out what to do with yet. The festival turns them into temporary art zones, then moves on.

Most street art festivals get absorbed into commercial tourism. City-sponsored. Corporate-backed. Sanitized for mass appeal. Paint and Beer resists that trajectory deliberately.

No factory ties. No mainstream dilution. Underground ethos maintained through economic independence. The festival remains uncompromised because it doesn’t need commercial money to survive. Community energy funds it. Artist participation sustains it.

The result: one of the heaviest underground events worldwide. A space where street art functions as intended—outside systems, outside permission, outside commercial control.

Held annually. Free. Independent. Still going after all theses years.

Paint & Beer Festival — Official Amsterdam listing

Produced by Name and Occupation
All images by André Quesnel

Street Art Documentary — Following the street art scene across Amsterdam, New York, Berlin, and Ottawa

In-Depth Amsterdam — Complete Amsterdam travel guide

Dutch Street Art — Dutch mural demolition project story

The post Paint and Beer Amsterdam appeared first on Name and Occupation.

Name: Niels Duursma – Occupation: Graffiti Artist – Role: Project Organizer

A flat in Heerenveen was scheduled for demolition. The Heerenhage building—a standard Dutch residential block on the edge of a canal—had a date set with the wrecking ball. Before that happened, Niels Duursma had a different idea. He proposed a graffiti jam. The owners agreed. What followed covered the entire building.

Artists from across the Netherlands painted every available surface. The canal running alongside meant the work was visible from passing boats. The audience wasn’t just the neighbourhood—it was anyone moving through the waterway.

The building sat flat and wide. Writers had room to scale their work up significantly. Illustrative pieces ran alongside traditional graffiti lettering. 3D elements added depth across several sections. The mix of styles emerged from the open call format. Different artists brought different approaches and worked simultaneously on adjacent walls.

Heerenveen is not Amsterdam or Rotterdam. It doesn’t have an established street art circuit or neighbourhoods known for murals. The Heerenhage building sat in an area of the city that had largely been overlooked. The project didn’t drop into a pre-existing creative ecosystem. It created one temporarily—for the duration of the jam and the weeks the building stood after.

The owners began uncertain. By the end they were advocates. Local press covered it—the Heerenveense Courant ran two pieces, one with drone footage of the work in progress. From above, the building read as a single continuous work. At street level it was a collection of individual pieces. Both readings were correct.

Locals who had initially questioned the project changed position once the walls went up. The building that had been blank and unremarkable became the most photographed thing in the neighbourhood in days.

The project sat inside broader context. Cities across the Netherlands increasingly use condemned buildings as temporary canvases before demolition. The logic is straightforward—the wall is coming down anyway. What happens between now and then is open.

It costs the owners nothing. Gives artists a surface they couldn’t otherwise access legally. The city gets colour where there was grey. The artists get scale they can’t find anywhere else. The building gets a final chapter before it disappears.

The work was always going to be demolished. That was part of the point. Street art that gets torn down isn’t failed street art—it’s street art that completed its purpose. The wall existed. The work went on it. People saw it. Then the building came down. That cycle is the work.

Niels approaches demolition projects differently from permanent commissions. The pressure to make something lasting is gone. What remains is the freedom to make something true to the moment—without worrying about weather, writers painting over it, or the owner changing their mind in five years.

That freedom produces different work. A different relationship between artist and surface. When permanence is off the table, the question shifts from what will last to what is right for this wall, right now.

The Heerenveen project answered that question across every surface of a six-storey building on a Dutch canal. The building is gone. The documentation remains. That’s the deal with temporary public art—the work ends, the record doesn’t.

Watch the feature story on Youtube

Heerenveense Courant — Graffiti Artists Decorate Heerenhage

Heerenhage Facebook Page

Street Art Documentary — Following the street art scene across cities

Paint and Beer Amsterdam — Amsterdam street art festival

In-Depth Netherlands — Complete Netherlands travel guide

All images by André Quesnel

The post Dutch Mural Demolition appeared first on Name and Occupation.

The House of PainT in Ottawa holds a significant place in Canada’s urban art history. It is recognized as the nation’s first legally recognized graffiti wall. Originally, it started as an informal gathering spot beneath the under a Bridge at Carleton University. Artists and b-boys would converge there to paint, chill, and jam. This underground hub attracted a dedicated community. It gained official status only after a coalition of activists and artists lobbied the city.

Their efforts transformed the site into a sanctioned space. Painting is no longer considered vandalism there. This fosters a safe environment for creative expression without fear of legal repercussions. From this foundation, the House of PainT celebration emerged. It is an annual event that has evolved into a major festival. This festival honors the four core disciplines of hip-hop. These are DJs, b-boying (breakdancing), emceeing (including spoken word and rap), and live musicians.

It is held each year. It draws considerable support from the city. It offers a pure representation of the culture. This resonates with attendees and boosts community engagement.

What truly sets House of PainT apart is its artist-centric approach. Unlike events for mainstream audiences, this festival is curated by practitioners. It is designed for those who live and breathe the art form. It provides a platform for artists to celebrate their craft without commercial pressures, emphasizing genuine participation over spectacle.

Ottawa’s graffiti scene grapples with a confidence issue, often undervalued despite producing work on par with global hotspots. The quality rivals that of Brooklyn or Montreal, where murals abound in the thousands, but Ottawa’s smaller scale leads to underappreciation.

A single photo comparison might blur the lines between these cities’ artworks. The proximity to Toronto and Montreal proves advantageous. Ottawa-based artists can travel easily for weekend sessions. They bomb walls and expand their reach. Being interconnected builds a national community, enabling creators to thrive beyond local limits. Tom Radford, a project manager at House of PainT, notes that artists follow opportunities wherever they arise. They paint across the country to sustain their passion.

Name: Tom Radford – Occupation: Project Manager

House of PainT– UrbanArtFest

Images by Andre Quesnel – Producer, Cameraman and Editor

Name and Occupation is financially supported by the viewers that contribute to the tip jar, paid content subscribers and with producers.

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