Griffith is Home to Australia's Best Street Art Laneway Experience

An unobtrusive laneway that parallels Griffith’s main thoroughfare has been named as the best street art laneway experience in Australia.

Banna Lane has received the Gold gong for Best Street Art Laneway at the 2022 Australian Street Art Awards announced from Queensland’s Sunshine Coast last night.

Banna Lane nudged out Austin Lane – the birthplace of the Darwin Street Art festival, which took the Silver Award, and Bidencopes Lane in the heart of Hobart CBD, which secured the Bronze Award.

The Australian Street Art Awards, a tourism awards for public art program, encourage Australians to explore the world-class street and public art that is freely accessible all year round and found in every corner of the country.

Banna Lane runs for about a kilometre and boasts 19 pieces of public artwork produced by some of Australia's best and emerging artists. The styles are varied, making the lane way diverse, capturing the many aspects of life in Griffith. They include Wiradjuri, typography, abstract, photorealism, graphic and illustrative.

Awards Director Liz Rivers said, “This unique laneway contributes significantly to making Australia a more vibrant, creative and interesting country – somewhere visitors want to explore more keenly.”

“Smart communities promote their outdoor art, as a unique landmark – an attraction that visitors can see in only place, and that makes their destination immediately identifiable, highly attractive and a drawcard for art-loving tourists,” Ms Rivers said.

“Investing in outdoor art as an attraction mechanism also makes economic sense as art is typically less expensive to create than more traditional tourism attractions while the pay-off is handsome,” she said.

Domestic arts tourists are high value visitors – they stay almost one-and-a-half times longer and spend about one-and-a-half times more per day than domestic tourists overall, according to an Australia Council for the Arts’ Domestic Art Tourism: Connecting the Country Report.

In commenting on Banna Lane’s win, the judges congratulated the organisers of the Banna Lane Festival for ensuring new artwork is produced annually to promote return visitation.

“We love how artists are required to create a connection to the city of Griffith through the subject of their artwork – it is a brilliant way to continue the region’s story,” the judges said.

One such mural is Nonna’s Table by Claire Foxton, which visually captures both the Riverina’s rich citrus farming history and the city’s strong Italian culture. This mural snagged Silver in the highly coveted Best External Mural category, while the Banna Lane Festival took out the Silver Award in the Best Street Art Festival or Event category.