High above the Andalusian landscape, somewhere between fear and freedom, Dutch street artist JDL transformed the sky itself into a canvas. What emerged is believed to be the world’s first street artwork created in freefall by a female artist, a project that pushes street art beyond walls, cities, and even gravity itself.
Known internationally for emotionally charged murals that centre empathy, resilience, and social justice, Amsterdam-based artist Judith de Leeuw work consistently carries the weight of lived experience. With Lost Dreamers, that philosophy reaches new altitude, literally and emotionally.
Created above Seville at Skydive Spain, where jumps take place from 13,000 feet, the highest altitude available in Europe, the project merges performance, activism, documentary storytelling, and aerial choreography into something almost impossible to categorise. It is street art detached from the street itself, suspended in open air for only a fleeting moment before disappearing into memory.
At the centre of the project is Jessy, a young girl JDL met through a closed youth institution. Over the course of a year, the artist mentored and coached her, witnessing a transformation from silence and withdrawal into confidence, creativity, and self-expression.
“When I was young, one sentence changed my life: You can do it. You matter.”
That sentence became the emotional foundation of the work. Jessy once dreamed of becoming an artist. Today, she is one.
Rather than positioning vulnerable young people through the lens of crisis or failure, Lost Dreamers reframes them as individuals filled with imagination, potential, and unrealised futures. The children JDL worked with spoke openly about invisibility, about feeling unheard within systems designed to protect them. Their experiences became the emotional architecture behind the artwork, and the sky becomes symbolic here. Vast, exposed, limitless.
The project was realised in collaboration with Het Vergeten Kind, Postcode Loterij, Skydive Spain, and Straat Museum, alongside an aerial team including Ally Milne, Gary Wainwright, Josh Carratt, and Joe Mann.
A documentary titled Lost Dreamers is set to follow, offering deeper insight into the children behind the project and the emotional process that shaped it.
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