Balcan Express 08

''Sarajevo Balcan Express June08''







It has been a while since i was invited at ''Balcan express'' Graffiti convention in Sarajevo and It definitively deserve a mention.
Now the situation in Sarajevo is going into normality after the war, the Italian army has finally gone home after making maybe more troubles than keeping the place safer, but this is another thing.
The city still has a lot of injuries from the war like wall covered by bullets holes and completely destroyed buildings...Step by step they are rebuilding everything with also some real modern constructions. I felt really weird by taking lots of pictures in a place in which tourism now is not the main thing. Anyway it is a great city with lots of nice people and a beautiful country side that remind me of Italy.
Along with me, it was invited Mr Wany form Italy (www.wanyone.com) , Aryz from Spain ( www.aryz.es ), and Ogre from France. We painted the wall of the Winter Olympic games '84 in the mountain next to Sarajevo. This wall was used then from the Serbian army as a Shield and place to bomb Sarajevo, infact there were plenty of big holes used to put guns and kalashnikov to bomb the city. It was quite tuching to paint that wall....

Anyway
The main reason why i wanted to post this it is to write something about graffiti in Sarajevo.
Due to lack of knowledge of Balcan Graffiti scene i was expecting to find something that was new and maybe not so accurate technically.
I WAS WRONG!!!!!

Graffiti in Sarajevo are dope!!!Both in the style and in the techniques; both bombers and halloffame writers; definitevely deserve a mention such artists like Nemone, Dream83 and Bugz36 i think the best writers in the city ( and really cool guys).

The curiosity was growing into me and i started asking lots of questions to these guys.

All the Sarajevo's writers were refugees during the war, some in Russia, some in Germany some in other parts of Europe in which the graffiti scene is highly developed and has long history. That's were they started painting at the age of 16 so, when they came back to their country ( age 18), they already had plenty of knowledge and skills. The result is a complete melting of european styles that they brought to Bosnia from their experience of refugees. Infact in their pieces you can see some of german attitudes and styles (nemo) some eastern european styles ( Bugz36 ) all merged now in what i would call Sarajevo's style.
It was really cool and definitively one of the best trip i have ever done.


Here some of the pieces we dropped during the fourdaysnonstoppainting!!!!

Peace