The urban farming project Himmelbeet (sky patch) is currently planning an extensive roof-top garden over Berlin! On the top of a former multi-storey car park in Berlin-Wedding, the nonprofit project is going to open an open gardening zone as from May 2013… In addition to the crops a beekeeper will supervise beehives. Workshops, cultural events and a coffee shop will revive the environment. We take a stand for maintaining of regional varieties, and want to grow organically and by the principles of permaculture. Gardening will take place in mobile raised beds. In addition to the community garden space, it will be possible to lease an own bed for a season. (loosely translated) ...

During the last days and weeks, I discovered some great beauty within the urban art world. So as not to let this stuck in my bookmark-archive, I thought in agin would be time for some Urban Art Link-Tips… For hardcore graffiti addicts the Soft-Can, a fluffy designer spray-can toy, couch pillow, decoration toy or living room accessory was developed! 100% handmade, heigth 30 cm, with 3 metal balls inside for real can feeling… ...

Two days ago, Urban Art Core published an exclusive sneak peek on London stencil artist Fin DAC’s latest stencil artwork Blackjack, of his fabulous female stencil art series. For those who want to know more about the London-based stencil art master, Abid Khan recently published a nice portrait of Fin as part of his inspirational artists video series, filmed in Fin DAC’s very own studio! It’s about beautifying something rather than destroy it. Cutting stencils is so hard edged and flat, I can’t get the depth, the fading that I want from it, but I still love cutting stencils.. ...

Anna Borgman and Candy Lenk realized the installation Luftschloss (cloud castle) on Alice-Salomon-Square in Berlin-Hellersdorf. The temporary urban intervention is the result of the examination of the fragmentation and incompletion of the space and the disappointed hopes for permanence and wholeness. The installation is 2300 m³ in size and is divided into four phases, showing different stages of transformation… I really like the idea, but what’s even more interesting is to see the exaggerated carelessness of the pedestrians. It’s like nobody notices anything; no one questions the installation, or wonders about it. It’s unbelievable… ...

London-based stencil artist Fin DAC continues his series of Asianics with Animals, with his latest piece entitled Blackjack. For Urban Art Core, he unveiled it for a very first exclusive preview! Inspired by Rembrandt’s Woman with a Lap Dog as well as Leonardo Da Vinci’s Woman with Ermine, this latest stencil artwork is named after the Victorian rat-catcher Jack Black who worked for Queen Victoria in the mid-nineteenth century. Furthermore, it is one of Fin’s submissions for the upcoming Urban In Ibiza 4 exhibition, opening on August 9th at Atzaro, Ibiza at which he is also going to paint live… ...

The urban art festival Frontier in Italy aims to be an important opportunity to show and underline how much the art of Writing and of Street Art have been so prominent and pioneering for the development of the contemporary international art scene, taking Bologna as an historical centre of production and observation. Recently, German 3D graffiti master DAIM finished a massive mural after eight days of work! The mural, located near the City Hall building at Via Fioravanti, now shows several layers of three-dimensional stars and a some writing popping out of the wall. Dope work again! ...

Popular urban artist Clemens Behr and graphic designer Raby Florence Fofana teamed up not long ago and together created a subway sculpture for Berlin’s probably most famous subway line U1! The so-called U1 Objekt is a two meters tall sculpture on wheels built out of wood and aluminium plates. The plates have been screenprinted with pattern-designs by Raby which where afterwards arranged and screwed together by Clemens… This Berlin subway sculpture is not just adding another part to Clemens Behr’s Places and Spaces series, but also objectifies the look and feel of a well-known means of local transport. Great! ...

Berlin-based ad takeover artist Vermibus shows how it’s done! Using nothing more than some brushes and different solvents, Vermibus transforms popular advertising posters of fashion models (e.g. Kate Moss) and puts them back to the streets… The gesture of erasing the images with solvent is similar to the gesture of painting, but it is painting counter action. The process is the same, but it is not adding colours on a canvas to create an image, it is removing the colors of an existing photographic image to create a new image and new characters. The models of the adverts have mutated. Some look like ghosts or mummies, some are reminiscent of Francis Bacon’s paintings, some of tribal make-up. ...

Billboard Bandits - Outlaw Artists in the Sky is the title of an upcoming billboard graffiti book, currently fund raising money at Kickstarter… This book is unlike any other in its genre, delving deep into the worlds of graffiti and street art yet focusing on the fascination with conquering billboards. While graffiti itself is illusive in nature, billboard graffiti takes it a step further as one of the most daring aspects of the craft. ...

Florian Rivière is an urban hacktivist. Some would call him a genius, I would describe him as a man with an eye for the small things in urban life. One of his latest small urban projects was the creation of a free urban exercise bike in Paris… Take one of those circulating city bikes, swing out the kickstand and you have your personal urban exercise bike! That’s it, so simple but nevertheless people are still paying for biking sessions in their local fitness studio. An absurdity. ...