Hip-hop and graffiti meet rural Iowa at Middle of Nowhere fest

Axios

09-05-2025

Drive down a gravel road and past fields of corn, and you'll find yourself surrounded by hip-hop music and graffiti artwork at a unique rural festival.
Why it matters: The Middle of Nowhere Rural Art & Music Festival showcases music and art, spotlighting the growing diversity in Iowa's often overlooked small towns.
State of play: Huxley artist Siriaco "Siricasso" Garcia launched the festival last year in Madrid, Iowa, at The Cellar Winery.
Siricasso is known for his murals and arts advocacy across the state, including at Hoover High School and Highland Park. He recently won the governor's emerging arts leader award.
How it started: Siricasso worked as an artist in Ames with his wife and kids, but in the city, he found himself "begging" for mural art projects to do.
His turning point was when the furnace went out in their mobile home four years ago and it was so cold, the walls started icing over. They moved to Huxley for more affordable housing.
Within a year in Huxley — a town of 4,600 people — he'd gotten four mural opportunities.
"They showed a lot of love," he says.
Details: His art pays homage to Chicano aesthetics, utilizing bold lines and many of the cartoons he grew up with in the '90s.
State of play: Siricasso has now painted more than 40 murals in Iowa and works as a full-time artist, regularly booking jobs across the state.
He intended the Middle of Nowhere festival to be a way to help people of color in rural areas feel connected. But he also wanted to encourage people in cities like Des Moines to open up and go somewhere they normally wouldn't go.
"When you think of rural, you don't think of hip-hop or graffiti — you think of just like country, folk, stuff like that," Siricasso says. "We're bringing that out there and letting people know that we're now here."