We Live For It

An Interview with Marina Mimoza

I’m feeling a little bit impatient.  Allow me to start with a direct question I’m really interested in…  What do you see as the difference between graffiti, street art, and traditional forms of art? 

The word “street” gives half the answer.  It has to be in public space.  Theoretically, we can talk about the differences between graffiti and street art.  There’s even a part of street art called muralism, with artists called muralists—some of whom wouldn’t even call themselves street artists.  

Really, the key is that street art is connected with public space, while traditional art appears in galleries.  Space and context dictate the difference: the closed space of galleries and museums versus the open streets.   

I’m not sure if I’m correct, but I’d also include street performers, street musicians and dancers, all those subcultures… They are street artists.  Whatever lives and maintains itself on the street is street art.  And the character of street artists is much different than artists working in galleries.  It’s a different world.  

Interesting, thanks for that.  Let’s start properly now: could you tell our readers who you are and what you do? 

I’m Marina Đapić, better known as Marina Mimoza.  I work in cultural production and the management of culture, mostly through the Street Art Festival.  I’m the Festival’s director, officially, and I’m also the president of our NGO, “Rezon.”  And behind me is a team of people who’ve been working on this idea for years.  

And your nickname, Mimoza.  Where did that come from?

[Laughs] An old love gave me that nickname: Mimoza as a symbol of tenderness, elegance, and freedom.  When I started DJing, it went with my name and it’s stayed like that since. Looking back, the nickname stands for a period of my life that was marked by a lot of productivity and creativity.

The Street Art Festival has been going for a lot of years now.  Can you tell us how it’s developed since its start back in 2012?

It came from an idea from 2011.  At the time, I was an active member of OKC Abrašević, and I was representing it to the Vjece Grad Mostara.  That work opened a lot of possibilities. And in 2012, it actually happened: the first festival.  Artists were painting murals, creative people got the opportunity to express themselves on walls—that first year was a success.

As time passed, more people got involved and more artists started getting in touch, “What are you doing?  We’d like to visit Mostar.”  Artists from abroad showed lots of solidarity towards us in Mostar.  In 2014, a group from Italy came and did the first big murals.  That was a breaking point: people from all over the world started coming.  

We celebrated 11 years of existence this year, and we’re entering a new period that’s going to be much more demanding.  But our work still has a volunteer character: nobody here lives from this festival, but we live for it. 

And what was the big motivation for you, on a personal level, to go from having the idea of a street art festival to actually starting it?

At the start, I was motivated by the city itself, and the fact that public space had no traces of any subculture (except the hooligans).  Just ugly messages on the walls, symbols that aren’t appropriate for an urban environment. 

Now I’m motivated by my team, which keeps getting better and better.  I don’t always have to lead everything, I can leave some things.  And wanting to improve our production, to have more and more quality, is very motivating too. 

This year, you introduced a new concept of residencies at Mostar Street Art Festival.  Mark Jenkins [an American Street Artist] was the first to have a residency with you guys…  How did it go? 

There were actually two resident artists leading the whole festival.  Mark Jenkins was with us for fifteen days, and Bifido (who was here in Mostar for the third time) was the second. 

Jenkins opened the festival by creating five sculptural installations in public spaces.  Then the other artists started to arrive and created 5 murals in different locations.  Two of them were on Vukovarska, where we started doing a new ‘street of murals’ a few years ago.  After this year, it’s filling up.

Sounds really nice.  We heard some of Jenkins’ statues disappeared.  What’s happened?   

Yeah, unfortunately two of them have been removed from their original locations.  We managed to save one of them a few days ago, but the other just disappeared.  Maybe it was thrown into the ruin, I’m not sure… but wherever Jenkins does this, similar things happen.  When you’re working in a public space, the fact that you’re outside means the work doesn’t belong to you anymore.  It belongs to everyone.

In that way, his practice questions society… and in turn, society’s reaction to his art shapes his practice.  Every reaction is worthy of analysis.  

Are there any assumptions about who removed them?

I wouldn’t comment on that, it happened, fuck it.  We’ll move on. 

Fair enough… Since you’re often working in public spaces, could you tell us about how you approach legality and ownership?

Personally, I’m for illegal graffiti and street art.  Outside of the festival, I’m always happy when I see that an artist has done graffiti or a mural and you don’t even know who they are.  

Whatever we do through the festival is always legal.  When facades are part of the city, we look for approval from them.  Privately-owned facades are offered to us by the owners themselves.  The fact that citizens approve of what we’re doing keeps things from getting too complicated. 

Sometimes there are exceptions when we experiment with abandoned ruins, since we just don’t know who the owners are (and neither does the city).  You just can’t get the information.  Then we’ll do it a little bit guerrilla style, with a little bit of risk; so, in rare cases, our actions are half-legal.  No one asked us about making war, destroying our environment, so why would we need to ask to make it better?

To finish off, what do we have to look forward to from the team behind the Street Art Festival? 

We now have a society of our own—Rezon—, so there will be a lot of new projects, maybe other festivals.  I really like that we have more young people around us now, they’ve been putting on some really interesting concerts.  Rezon is registered on the level of BiH, so I hope that we’ll act in other places tomorrow or today.

I’m always interested in experiments where there’s some amount of uncomfortability—situations and energies like that.  It’s challenging too, but we’ll see what’s going to happen.

Yes, and we just finished a documentary called The Future of Public Space. That’s kind of our slogan.  It’ll shine a light on who we are and what we do, what we stand for, and what the street art festival represents for both Mostar and the whole artistic scene of BiH. 

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The Future of Public Space premiered in Mostar on December 10, 2022.  Screenings are to come in other cities throughout the Balkans in the Spring.