Mural Award

The Prijedor municipality in the north-west of Bosnia, where my family and me settled after escaping our hometown of Sanski Most, has had strong economic and cultural connections with Italian Province of Trento ever since the end of the Bosnian war 1992-1995. Most of the projects realized between the two regions were fostering the decentralized cooperation between individuals and non-governmental groups. Thanks to this dozens of thousands of Italians visited Prijedor in the past twenty and more years and became our friends. Such friends were the humanitarian Vera Sarovic from Trento and the renowned mural painter Paola de Manincor from Lavis (TN), who in 1996 painted a very first mural in Prijedor, together with the children from the local refugee centers. In the following years the cultural ties between the two regions grew stronger as hundreds of cultural exchange projects were carried out, from concerts and exhibitions to development projects and artistic residencies. 

One of such project is the "Prijedor-town of murals", an annual competition-based award established in remembrance of our friend Paola de Manincor who unfortunately passed away in 2011. Each year an expert jury selects the best mural proposal among the contestants and the winning mural is painted on one of the previously selected locations in the city. By the end of 2021 a couple of hundreds of artists from all over the world participated and 9 murals in total were added to the local urban landscape. In all the years none of the winning murals was vandalized or destroyed and the project received positive feedback from the local community. From 2022 the local Association of visual artists of Prijedor ( ULUP )–the official organizer of the project, is planning to transform the award from open call into an invitation-based. 

From 2013 to 2022 I was responsible for the project concept, organization and overall management.