Graffiti and street art are best viewed in their natural setting, in the city, on the streets. And because of their nature contextualization is not necessary. However, after many decades of research, documentation, and promotion of these art forms, it became obvious to us that if general viewer gets a little bit more information about the pieces or the authors, they will start to appreciate these art forms wholeheartedly. The consequence of this intervention is people who start enjoying their urban surroundings more and artists that get more understanding, appreciation, and creative opportunities. We wish to provide this missing link between the artists that produce their art in the streets and viewers in a reliable and scientifically correct way.

Navigating through this system you will be able to get acquainted with the artworks of Belgrade’s kings and queens. Reading about the particular artists or artworks you should get a general overview of the development of Belgrade’s graffiti and street art scene.

Since the unofficial beginning of graffiti culture in Belgrade in 1995 there has been a relatively small number of active graffiti writers and street artist. The capital city in which population is approaching 2 million people the number of active graffiti writers and street artists moves between 20-30 individuals. Since the scene is relatively small it is compact and functional. There are problems on the scene, like in any other city, but they seem to be of personal nature and more often than not they do not impact the functioning of the scene in general. There are other active scenes in Serbia, but everyone come to do art in Belgrade, and some of the artist even stay. This means that the local Belgrade scene is actually constantly being strengthened by the extraordinary artists that come from other cities or the artists from abroad that come to do their art and sometimes stay.

The Street Art Belgrade team consists of professionals that have enthusiastically collected photographs and documented, in different media, art pieces that are part of graffiti culture and street art. The aspects of documentary photography and art history are most present at this stage of the project. These are basic tools for understanding what is going on in the streets of Belgrade when it comes to these forms of art. We research and photograph everything that is related to graffiti in general, because that gives the context to our part of research, but have decided to concentrate on the production of graffiti culture and street art. This means that we research, document and promote everything that is related to:

• graffiti culture that was created in New York at the beginning of 1970s and all forms of this expression that have developed from it in more than fifty years of existence,
• street art as an artistic expression that has steamed from graffiti culture and gained global appreciation,
• new muralism as an art form that came to be when graffiti writers and street artist produced their art in the public space but with the permission.

Since graffiti and street art are created in the public space without permission, they contain within themselves a very special ingredient – a possibility for the artists to voice their thoughts and emotions without sanctions. This is the reason why we put all our efforts in documenting exactly the art works that were done without permission.

The fact that these art works are created in the streets make the same streets a gallery or museum space. Therefore, it is not necessary to own these pieces, it is not necessary to preserve them in physical form, it is not necessary to put them in the institutional context for they will lose their essence. What is necessary, though, is to document them properly and to allow those that have interest in these art forms to see and read the history of graffiti culture and street art in Belgrade.

Hence an idea of the digital institution. This institution is imagined as a place where one could find the biggest amount of information about a particular artist or artwork without actually intervening on the streets in their natural setting. We have created a photo archive where each photo will be processed with museological system in mind and cross-referenced with other art works of the same artists, topic, crew, technique and so on. This archive will serve as data base for the creation of the exhibitions in Virtual Reality (VR).