Bearing in mind that we are all going through challenging periods of changes in the way we organize life and work, and that sometimes it seems that nothing is happening, we wanted to look back on the year that is about to end. Our desire is to show that a strong community, once naive enthusiasm and love for the field we are dealing with can overcome challenges and make progress that is extremely valuable.
With the support of numerous individuals and partners, this year our association managed to take important steps in the promotion of street art and graffiti.
Street art walks
We joined forces and merged our organizations Street Art Belgrade (Jelena Popović Đorđević and Aleksandar Đorđević) and Street Art Walks Belgrade (Ljiljana Radošević and Srđan Tunić). We believed that together we are stronger and more effective in bringing street art closer to the public. The first joint project is the street art walks that we started, during which we enjoyed discovering the streets and meeting street lovers.
Promotion of digitization in the field of street art
With the support of the Ministry of Culture, we dedicated the year 2021 to presenting the digitalization of street art as well as the first exhibition of street art and graffiti in Belgrade in a virtual space in our region. We presented the project to the students of the UNESCO Department of Cultural Policy and Management of the University of Arts in Belgrade, master’s students of the “NYU Abu Dhabi” faculty, as part of the All girls jam festival, Street art weekend in Vračar, and in August we also went to Vienna to “Calle Libre”. street art festival. We held a presentation of the digitization project and exhibition in the monumental space of the Weltmuseum Wien ethnology museum. In order to bring digitization and virtual spaces closer to the general public, we also organized a guided tour through the virtual exhibition “Loving Street art Belgrade” through the Božidarac Digital platform. The exhibition will also be presented at EXPO Dubai in cooperation with the Tourist Organization of Serbia. For one week, all visitors to the Serbia stand will have the opportunity to walk the streets of Belgrade in a virtual space. We are very happy that next year we will create a new exhibition in the virtual space dedicated to the cooperation between France and Serbia, we will present the works of artists from France who created on the streets of our cities, as well as our artists who created on the streets of France. This exhibition will be presented at the Cultural Center of Serbia in Paris.
The first 3D models of murals for the blind and partially sighted in Belgrade
The most important project we implemented this year is “Art in Passing”, in which we installed the first 3D models of murals for blind and partially sighted people in Serbia. A few years ago, we realized that although we often say that street art is the freest form of art that is available to everyone, that in reality it is not true, and that it really does not belong to everyone who walks the streets, especially to those who cannot see it. In cooperation with the fantastic members of the Belgrade City Organization for the Blind, we managed to set up two models, gained wonderful friends and inspiration for new actions. This project could not be realized first of all without the City Organization who wholeheartedly helped us in creating the model, but also without the support of the teams of the Telenor Foundation, the Austrian Cultural Center, Božidarac and the Ministry of Culture and cooperation with Weedzor whose works we transferred with 3D printing. The plan is to install new models in Belgrade in 2022, and hopefully in other cities in Serbia.
Street art weekends in Vračar
The collaboration with Božidarac, which began three years ago, very spontaneously grew into a valuable partnership in which we created joint projects with pure and unspoiled enthusiasm, one of them being the Street Art Weekend, which has become a traditional event in which free events are held – from street art workshop for seniors, street art tour of Vračar, lectures and workshops. This year, two weekends were held – summer and autumn. Another example of how important it is to find like-minded people who believe that it is possible to create quality content above all, regardless of real limitations in terms of budget and resources in the field of culture. Vladimir Kljajić and Marko Filipović spent many weekends, afternoons and evenings solving challenges, untangling cables, carrying panels and buckets of paint together with us, always in a good mood with new ideas.
Ephemeral
As part of the Božidarac Digital program, the Ephemeral panel was held, where the authors and organizers of the GraFem project (Center Rog and Urbana Vrana, Ljubljana), the Rekonstrukcija festival (Belgrade) and All Girls Jam (Belgrade) spoke. During the forum, in addition to discussing various aspects of the organization, the theoretical and ethical positions of the organizers of the festival, Jana and TKV shared their impressions from the positions of street artists. The result of this tribune is acquaintances that will hopefully translate into guest appearances, residencies and perhaps new festivals in the region in the next year.
The third edition of the book “Street Art Belgrade”
This year, the third edition of the book “Street Art Belgrade” was published. When the book came out in 2016, we couldn’t even guess what a wonderful adventure we were embarking on. We are very happy that through the book we met fantastic people, were guests at events in the country and around the world, and most importantly got inspiration to create new projects. We promise that in 2022 we will publish a new book, different but equally interesting, which will be a logical continuation of the previous one.
Cooperation with the media
If you thought that colleague Ljiljana Radošević was on every TV channel, radio and portal, you were not far wrong. We are grateful for the interest of journalists and the media space we received, primarily during the installation of the 3D mural, but also during other events we organized. We think it is important that we had the opportunity to indirectly clarify and present the field of street art and graffiti on the occasion of the political murals that have been a hot topic in the last month. We appreciate the time and the audience. If we exclude members of the subcultural community and those interested in urban culture in general, the majority of the local population thinks that local graffiti and street art are vandalism. So the logic that comes from it is: “I don’t know what it is, I don’t understand it. That’s why I’m afraid of it and I want it to go away”. From our experience, when you tell people the history of street art, the reasons why this art is on the streets, the motivation of the artists, they begin to understand and in most cases begin to appreciate graffiti and street art.
Thanks again to everyone who was with us this year on the streets!
P.S. This year we also celebrated the successes of our members: Srđan Tunić is currently on a master’s program in America, Ljiljana Radošević became a licensed tourist guide and mentee within the Creative Mentorship program, Aleksandar Đorđević started working on the NFT project. Jelena organizes new actions and keeps everything under control…creative control.