07 Jun THE LAST TWO MURALS OF THE FREE THE STREETS / FREE THE PEOPLE INITIATIVE IN NOVI SAD AND BELGRADE
June is the month when the last two murals within the Free the Streets / Free the People initiative will be painted – the ninth and tenth in a row – in Novi Sad and Belgrade. Our renowned street artists, TKV and Artez, will create these two murals. From June 5th to 9th, TKV will be painting the mural titled “CUT IT” on the façade of a building in Krfska Street in Detelinara, while from June 16th to 23rd, Artez will be painting a mural on the façade of a building in Beogradska Street. All citizens are invited to take a walk to these streets during the specified periods and to follow the process of creating these murals!
We remind you that the citizen initiative Free the Streets/Free the People was created as a reaction to the overwhelming amount of aggressive messages found on walls in cities across Serbia. In Belgrade, their number is particularly disturbing. Therefore, we continue to support local artists to paint murals that send messages of unity and make the streets and public spaces welcoming for all citizens, while also reminding them that this space belongs to all of us and that we all, regardless of personal beliefs, have the right to use it – for leisure, socializing, and gathering. Within this initiative, five murals have already been painted in Padinska Skela, as well as murals in Obrenovac, Čačak, and Kraljevo.
Artist Biographies:
TKV is a Belgrade street artist born in 1988. After attending high school for graphic arts, specializing in photography, she continued her formal education in media theory and earned a master’s degree in global media culture in 2012. She has been actively engaged in her artistic practice since 2004, starting with street art and later exploring various techniques and media – from furniture redesign to 3D printing. In 2019, she was awarded the Medal of Arts and Letters of the French Republic in the rank of knight. In 2018, she founded a street art festival for girls to support and connect female graffiti and street artists.
For over two decades, TKV has been leaving her works on the streets of Belgrade. Despite such an impressive career, long for anyone creating street art, street art enthusiasts and media continue to rediscover her and speak of her as someone who brings new, fresh ideas to our streets. How to explain this effect when she has been exclusively dealing with self-portraits, portraits, and depictions of women for many years? When artists fundamentally connect with the theme they are working on and become a link between the feelings and ideas of what they represent and the audience, the experiences and feelings are always as strong as when we experience them for the first time. That is why her interpretations of the women around her seem timeless yet simple. Simple in the sense that they do not contain unreadable conceptual ideas, allowing everyone, regardless of their knowledge of art, to identify with her works or recognize a familiar person in them. They are timeless because they describe the essence of a woman, every woman, or rather everything she is and what she could be. However, when these ideas are abstracted, they can be transferred to any human being because ideas about self-awareness, freedom, and engagement are universal. She speaks about these topics from her own position, the position of a woman, because she feels most comfortable in it. In this regard, her choice of technique and way of exhibiting is not surprising. Street art offers the freedom of thought, production, and exhibiting works in public spaces without the influence of the artistic establishment. However, TKV is not completely isolated from official art; from time to time, when a sufficient degree of freedom arises, and when she feels the need to express herself differently, her exhibitions come to life.
Andrej Žikić, born in Belgrade in 1988, graduated from the Faculty of Architecture at the University of Belgrade in 2013. Under the pseudonym ‘Artez‘, he has been involved in street art for over 20 years and is currently one of the most prominent local street artists. In the past decade, he has been active on the international street art scene – leaving his mark in many European countries – Austria, Spain, Italy, Sweden, Norway, France, Germany, Croatia, Slovenia, Belgium, Turkey, as well as in numerous countries worldwide – Argentina, Brazil, Georgia, Russia, Kazakhstan, Egypt, and India. During breaks between travels, he lives and works in Belgrade.
About the Murals:
TKV: The work was created in 2017. The inspiration for this piece was the maturation process happening within me at that time. I believe that anyone who decides to look within can see the outlines of the person they will become, but to become that person, we must let go of old ways of thinking. Sometimes this requires a lot of courage, time, and tenderness. “CUT IT” is about realizing there is a path ahead that you have yet to take, leading you toward yourself.
Artez: “Life in an urban environment and the chaos that comes with it served as the basis for the concept of this mural. The location itself – Beogradska Street, one of the busiest thoroughfares in the capital – best illustrates the chaos typical of an urban environment. By introducing elements of nature into the given context, a juxtaposition is created to capture the viewer’s attention and divert their thoughts from everyday concerns. The portrait of a girl drinking water from a vase filled with flowers speaks to the fundamental human need for nature. She longs for the energy that only nature can provide, which is so difficult to find in an urban setting. This mural invites viewers to find a moment for introspection and connection with nature and highlights the importance of preserving nature in urban areas.”
About the Free the Streets/Free the People Initiative:
For a long time, the street walls in Serbian cities and towns have been a battleground for various right-wing and other groups, serving as a platform to promote their close-knit policies. The result of this support and covert influence from state structures is an urban landscape saturated with painted messages, stencils, graffiti, and murals that directly incite hatred, malice, narrow-mindedness, racism, sexism, and generally spread various toxic content, creating a society full of violence, particularly among young people.
The two-year initiative Free the Streets/Free the People aims to influence the change of the aforementioned practices and raise awareness of the harmfulness of chauvinistic and reductive ways of thinking about the past, present, and future, which are dominant in public spaces. The main activities include:
– Networking through the visual street art interventions,
– Transforming public spaces,
– Public advocacy with policymakers at the local and national levels with the aim to change legislation regarding the public expression of hate speech.
This initiative seeks to change the narrative and promote messages of unity and inclusivity, making public spaces welcoming for everyone.
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