Street Artists Brighten Up Kosovo’s Divided Mitrovica

Street artists have been decorating the walls of the Ibar bridge in Mitrovica with brightly-coloured murals during this month's Nomad festival, which is also part of a wider project called ARTivism which aims to connect communities through art.

Marko Rakic from the NGO Local Initiative LINK, one of the organisations behind the Nomad festival, said that the young artists come from both the Serb and ethnic Albanian communities in the area which has seen ethnic tensions and unrest over the past few decades.

"These are artists from different communities, they are just young people and they are aware of the mistakes made by the older generations, maybe unconsciously; they are not proud of that and do not want to talk about it, there are a lot of other topics [to discuss]," Rakic said.

"But even when there is a mention of politics, one thing is clear - everybody is unhappy with the current [situation] and everyone would like to leave," he added.

The murals are not intended to offer direct messages, said Rakic.

"However, what we also do is we very often paint over various nationalist, fascist and offensive symbols in both parts of town," he added.

The Nomad festival is only taking place in Serb-majority North Mitrovica but Local Initiative Link is also involved in painting murals also in other municipalities in north Kosovo and sometimes in ethnic Albanian-majority South Mitrovica.

Rakic said the artists have not encountered problems while painting on walls around the town and that "very often the police also like it".

Murals on the Ibar bridge in Mitrovica. Photo: Local Initiative LINK.

Photo: Local Initiative LINK.

Artist painting a mural on the Ibar bridge. Photo: Local Initiative LINK.

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