This summer, Poetry Unbound celebrated a milestone with the creation of its first two murals — each born from the project’s inaugural artist residencies and the meeting of poetry with contemporary public art.

During the first residency period, Saskia Stehouwer and Martin Solotruk stayed in Genoa for two weeks, while Nikola Madzirov and Laura Accerboni spent the same period in Antwerp. Immersing themselves in the rhythms, histories, and atmospheres of their host cities, the poets developed new work that would soon find its way into the urban fabric.

In Genoa, Slovak poet Martin Solotruk collaborated with Italian artist Federico Russo on a striking mural in the city’s historic centre. Painted on the wall of the 15th-century building housing the International Poetry Residency Parole spalancate, Russo’s layered design — based on antique maps and overlaid with images of whales — merges maritime heritage with Solotruk’s verses, in a rare intervention approved by the Fine Arts authority.

In Antwerp, Macedonian poet Nikola Madzirov teamed up with local multidisciplinary artist Larsen Bervoets to create a large-scale geometric mural at the entrance to the Blikfabriek, a former factory turned creative community hub. Madzirov’s poem “Distance is a Moving Wall” became an integral part of Bervoets’s bold visual composition, greeting visitors with both colour and language.

These first two murals embody the essence of Poetry Unbound: bringing poetry off the page and into public space, and creating lasting connections between local environments, visual art, and the written word.