FINAL SHOTZ #1: FORME festival in Montespertoli 🇮🇹 - A new wind over old fields

FORME brings contemporary muralism to rural Tuscany, revitalising a town through memory, labor, and landscape.

Montespertoli is a small town in the rolling hills of the Florentine countryside, a landscape where agriculture, memory, and community have shaped life for centuries. Vineyards, olive groves, medieval towers, and winding rural roads form a geography that is both physical and emotional, a place where identity is rooted in the land.

Montespertoli sits among the rolling hills of the Florentine countryside, a landscape where agriculture, memory, and community have shaped life for centuries. Vineyards, olive groves, medieval towers, and winding rural roads form a geography that is both physical and emotional — a place where identity is rooted in the land.

This summer marks a turning point. As the Municipality puts it, “Starting this summer, both tourists and the residents of Montespertoli will be able to enjoy these artworks throughout our renewed historic center.” FORME arrives as a new international public art festival, bringing contemporary muralism into the heart of rural Tuscany.

Urban Art as rural revitalisation

Urban art has long transformed big cities, but in small rural towns like Montespertoli, its impact is even more profound. Murals make local stories visible again: agricultural rituals, landscapes, legends, and crafts return to the surface of everyday life, turning memory into something shared rather than hidden.

A town with murals becomes a destination. People come to walk, photograph, and discover, bringing fresh energy to local businesses and public life. A wall becomes a place to gather, talk, and reflect. Public art transforms anonymous corners into social spaces.

It empowers communities. When residents contribute stories, photos, and memories, the artwork becomes theirs, strengthening belonging and pride. And it signals cultural investment, a message that resonates with young people, families, and visitors alike.

Most importantly, public art bridges tradition and contemporary language. Rural identity meets global artistic practices, opening a dialogue between past and future that keeps the territory culturally vibrant and emotionally connected.

FORME — A New Wind of Change

FORME has been in development for nearly two years. As the organizers explain,

“Forme is a festival that has been in development for almost a year and a half , perhaps even two years , and it involves the entire center of Montespertoli.” The intention is clear: “to make contemporary urban art accessible to everyone and to turn Montespertoli into a true open-air art gallery.”

The festival was conceived in collaboration with the Municipality, A Testa Alta A.P.S., and supported by Fondazione CR Firenze. Months of preparation with local residents helped identify themes, select artists, and design a route that will host seven murals over five months. “This marks the first edition of what is intended to become a cultural event that brings a fresh breeze to Montespertoli through urban art.”

At the heart of the festival lies a shared curatorial thread:

“to tell the story of Montespertoli’s past through a contemporary lens.”

Themes tied to the territory’s identity , landscape, agriculture, traditional crafts, create “a bridge between tradition and innovation through artistic expression.”

As one organizer reflects, “I believe this initiative has far greater value than it may initially seem, because building the foundations for this investment together with the local community has been a wonderful and meaningful exercise.”

Sangiovese and Frantoio — Thiago Mazza

Brazilian muralist Thiago Mazza, one of the leading figures of contemporary botanical muralism, brings to Montespertoli his signature ability to make flora feel alive on the wall. Known for blending classical painting with urban art and scientific observation, Mazza approaches plants not as motifs but as protagonists.

In Montespertoli, he chose the two species that define the town’s identity, grapevine and olive tree. After days spent walking the fields, studying leaves, textures, and the way light touches branches, he transformed Via Martini 36 into a luminous tribute to the land. His mural doesn’t decorate the village; it reveals it, returning visibility to what has always been here, quietly shaping the landscape and the community.

Non trova posa — Luca Zamoc

Italian visual artist Luca Zamoc, known for his research into memory, belief systems, and the intersections between nature and inhabited space, approaches muralism as a way to question how societies evolve. His work often blends archival material with contemporary concerns, creating images that feel both ancient and urgent.

For FORME, Zamoc reconstructed a giant tractor from historical photographs and testimonies gathered from residents. The mural revisits the era of straw threshing, once a collective rural ritual involving dozens of people and animals. Mechanisation emptied the fields, transforming labor and community life. Zamoc doesn’t moralize; he poses a question: What happens to communities when work changes shape? In a time when AI is reshaping labor, the tractor becomes a symbol of all transitions, past and present.

Istoria del cavaliere errante — Ufo Cinque

Italian artist Ufo Cinque has spent decades developing a unique visual language rooted in medieval cartography, heraldry, and symbolic storytelling. His murals often function like ancient manuscripts: layered, narrative, and filled with references to local history and collective memory.

In Montespertoli, he paints a wandering knight traveling through castles, fields, and ancient routes, a figure drawn from the town’s medieval imagination. Blending atlases, miniatures, and popular iconography, Ufo Cinque turns the wall on Via Sonnino 30 into a map of identity, not geography. His mural reminds viewers that every territory carries stories beneath its surface, waiting to be reactivated.

FORME Festival — The Framework

FORME is promoted by the Municipality of Montespertoli, co-designed with A Testa Alta A.P.S., curated by Street Levels Gallery, and supported by Fondazione CR Firenze and a network of local sponsors.

It aims to:

• bring contemporary public art to rural Tuscany

• create cultural opportunities accessible to all

• strengthen the bond between citizens and their territory

• activate new forms of participation

• position Montespertoli on the map of European public art

FORME is not just a festival, it is territorial transformation through art.

Nature, labor, memory — and revitalisation.
These first three murals announce the mission of FORME: to make public art a shared act of identity, participation, and transformation.

Montespertoli is not just hosting a festival.
It is becoming one.

The story continues … on Street Art Cities

With the first three murals completed, Montespertoli’s new visual landmarks are now part of Street Art Cities: mapped, documented, and ready for anyone to explore. What began as a local process of listening, painting, and community storytelling now enters a global stage, where residents, visitors, and art lovers can discover the works through the app, follow the artists, and interact with the town’s growing open‑air collection.

On Street Art Cities, each mural becomes more than an image: it becomes a story you can walk, a voice you can hear, and a place you can experience. Users can navigate Montespertoli’s streets, find the artworks, save favorites, share impressions, and join a worldwide community of people who care about public art. The social features turn every wall into a conversation, between locals, travelers, artists, and the territory itself.

FORME’s murals now live both on the streets and in the digital commons.
They belong to Montespertoli, and they belong to everyone.

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Final Shotz is a series focussing on festival’s closing heartbeat: sharing the stories of finished walls. Experience the moment after the dust settles: the paint is dry, the lifts are gone, and the city stands transformed. Instead of ending with a chaotic stream of images, Final Shotz offers a calm, structured anthology that shows the festival in its final state.

“Final Shots becomes a postfestival anthology, a structured visual wrapup that presents every completed wall in one place, not as a chaotic dump of images, but as a curated, narrative-driven overview of the festival’s final state.”