Balkan Trafik Street Art in Brussels
The new street generation from the Balkans is currently experiencing a social, cultural and esthetic boom, giving birth to many new identities and collective representations. Already 4 murals have been produced in collaboration with the City of Brussels, as part of its PARCOURS STREET ART.
2021 – ojoMAGico (Croatia)
ojoMAGico, whose real name is Jadranka Lacković, graduated from the Academy of Applied arts (applied painting) in Rijeka, a city located on the Northern Adriatic coast which is also the largest port in Croatia.
Jadranka is co-founder and leader of ArtMašina, a creative studio for informal learning of art techniques and the promotion of visual culture in everyday life.
Over the last two years, she has been using fishes more dominantly in her work. Fishes know no boundaries, swim freely and therefore are a symbol of freedom.
Indeed, for the mural in Brussels, Jadranka decided to paint herring fishes. Why herrings? Because herrings belong to the group of blue fishes and are related to sardines which are called the “Queen of the Adriatic” by Croatians because it has fed people on the coast for centuries.
“Fish is an indispensable part of our culture but that is exactly what unites us. Because whoever lives by the sea lives for the sea.”
On a side note, ojoMAGico is from Rijeka (Croatia) and her name Jadranka means Adriatic like the Adriatic sea (called Jadransko More in Croatian) 😉
2020 – JANA DANILOVIC (Serbia)
Jana Danilović is a Belgrade-based street artist and muralist, Doctor of Arts degree holder, street-art theorist and co-founder of Rekonstrukcija, Belgrade’s biggest festival of arts on the street.
Actively working on her artistic production in public space as well as her studio work, her murals can be seen on streets of Serbia, Croatia, France, Germany, Montenegro, Bosnia and Greece, her studio work has been displayed on thirteen solo shows and over fifty group exhibitions all over the world. Her work explores the role of an individual in various contexts, using different metaphors to illustrate ideas of freedom, solidarity and emancipation.
2019 – RIKARDO DRUSKIC (Bosnia-Herzegovina)
Rikardo Druškić was born in Zagreb but he has spent nearly his entire life in Sarajevo.
Under the motto “One can only see well with the heart, a reference to the Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, the artist invites passers-by to look at others through the eyes of a child: without judgment and to open heart. In fact, through its abstraction, colors and shapes, this mural is universal, leaving everyone their own interpretation, whatever their origin, age or gender.
2018 – BOZKO (Bulgaria)
Bozhidar Simeonov, alias BOZKO, is a Bulgarian street artist living and working in Sofia.
Trained at the Academy of Fine Arts in Sofia, BOZKO aims to cover up the sad ugliness of the deprived areas of his city by covering it with works of strange looking but adorable at the same time characters.