Nuart returns to Aberdeen
Nuart Aberdeen is building momentum for this year's festival with co‑founder Martyn Reed set to install a major display at the derelict Bon Accord Baths, and artists will join an existing mural by Aberdeen-born KMG at the University’s Cruickshank Botanic Garden. (Aberdeen Live).
A street art festival is about to put one of Aberdeen’s emptiest buildings back in the spotlight. Nuart Aberdeen says Scottish artist Robert Montgomery will unveil an 11-metre installation inside Bon Accord Baths when the festival opens on April 22, 2026. (aberdeeninspired.com) Bon Accord Baths is not a random backdrop. The Art Deco pool complex shut in 2008, sat derelict for years, and has become one of the city’s most recognizable “what if” buildings. (datathistle.com) Montgomery is not new to Aberdeen either. Organizers describe him as one of the artists at the heart of the first Nuart Aberdeen in 2017, when his text-based piece at Jopps Lane became one of the festival’s best-known works. (aberdeeninspired.com) That history matters because 2026 is not a standard mural year for Nuart. The official festival site says this edition is built around “Poetry Is In The Streets,” with a focus on poetry and text-based work rather than only giant figurative wall paintings. (2026.nuartaberdeen.co.uk) So the baths installation is doing two jobs at once. It brings back an artist known for words in public space, and it places that work inside a former swimming pool that already carries a lot of memory for Aberdeen residents. (aberdeeninspired.com) The second new location is quieter but just as deliberate. Aberdeen-born artist KMG is creating a mural on the rear wall of the University of Aberdeen’s Zoology building facing into Cruickshank Botanic Garden in Old Aberdeen. (abdn.ac.uk) That wall will be the first time Nuart has placed work in the heart of Old Aberdeen. The university says the festival runs from April 22 to April 26, 2026, and the KMG mural is intended to leave a permanent legacy on campus after the event ends. (abdn.ac.uk) KMG’s design was shaped by the setting. Reporting on the project says her mural features a stylized blackbird and the words “unheard, unseen,” drawing on writer Nan Shepherd and the garden landscape around the wall. (postabdn.com) Nuart Aberdeen has been running since 2017 as a partnership between Aberdeen Inspired and Aberdeen City Council, and organizers say the 2026 festival will run from Wednesday, April 22, to Sunday, April 26. This year’s reveal shows the event spreading beyond city-centre walls into places with their own stories already built in. (aberdeeninspired.com)
