'South Detroit' and dozens of other new murals completed as festival wraps

A new downtown mural proudly proclaims Windsor as "South Detroit." Another features an iconic can of Canadian maple syrup.

These, and dozens of other muralsare now permanent features of downtown Windsor after an eight-day mural festival wrapped up Tuesday.

"I'm super proud," said Daniel "Denial" Bombardier, organizer behind the festival. "Windsor deserves it. Windsor really needs this right now."

The festival saw 53 new murals in the city completed by 66 artists over eight days. Several of the murals are on buildings around 560 Wyandotte St.W., while others are in the downtown core, like alleys near Maiden Lane.

"You'll go back and you just see the impact that it's had in the area,"said artist Caesar "Czr Prz" Perez, who painted at 560 Wyandotte St.W.

"You see a lot more like families and people that are actually want to be out in the streetsand being able to be in their own neighbourhoods instead of feeling like they're prisoners in their neighbourhood."

Bombardier said while he called on an international community of mural artists for the inaugural festival this year, next year he's hoping to bring in more local artists.

"These spaces are valuable, even though they've been neglected for a while," he said. " I mean it doesn't take too much work.

"It takes some elbow grease and some planning, the little bit of money, and a community to change things."