December 1, 2023 – Rijeka Street Art LAB is an educational program dedicated to street art, created in collaboration with the VMB Association and the Rijeka Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art. It was implemented in February 2023, and so far it has hosted a total of eleven workshops – six street art workshops and five urban street art expeditions. It has just entered the final phase with the release of the Rijeka Street art map.
“The goal of this map is to serve as a kind of guide for children and adults, which will enable every interested individual to start an independent discovery of the street art of Rijeka. The routes and content designed through the workshops held throughout the year 2023 served as the basis for the contents of the map. In this way, the map was created precisely on the basis of practical experience in working with the public, which, we hope, will enable it to better suit its needs”, state the organizers, as written on Turisticke Price.
Through years of work in the cultural and artistic informal education of children and young people, this association has designed all kinds of programs and workshops close to the young population of Rijeka, but
year after year, street art has proven to be one of the themes and artistic formats that sparked the greatest interest of the young ones and showed the greatest potential for achieving change not only on a personal but also on a wider social level.
Through street art workshops, a high level of participation was achieved, children had the opportunity to learn about different types of activism and develop important life skills such as empathy, social skills, teamwork, planning, critical thinking, communication, and active participation in community life from an early age.
Precisely for this reason, but also due to the fact that in the last few years Rijeka has received a representative number of examples of street art, in 2023 they chose street art as the main theme and medium of work.
Rijeka Street art practicum and Urban street art expeditions
The publication of the street art map was preceded by year-long activities consisting of two types of workshops. The first Street art workshop, through which children and young people had the opportunity to learn directly from local street art artists Tanja Blašković, Jadranka Lacković and Ines Milčić about the processes of creating murals and art installations from sketch to transfer to public space. As part of the workshops, parts of neglected Križanićeva Street were renovated with new murals, part of the old ones were repaired, while several dozen concrete columns were painted on Klobučarićev Square.
The second workshop of the Urban street art expeditions, which were conceived as family workshops, aimed to bring the existing street art of the city closer to children and their families. In cooperation with the museum pedagogue Ivana Lučić, several different routes were designed that logically and meaningfully connected different locations where the murals and/or other artistic interventions in the public space are concentrated. Considering the specific geographic separation of the city of Rijeka, including its center itself, this was an important step forward for mediation and audience development in the street art segment of the city.
A total of 5 expeditions were held, and participants had the opportunity to explore different locations with murals and artistic interventions, participating in interactive tasks to encourage participation, observation, and critical reflection. In addition to the children as the participants of the program and their parents, street art expeditions were also held for the students of the Rijeka Education and Training Center and the users of the Moje mjesto pod suncem program.
Three pedestrian routes on the Street art map of the city
Project managers Natali Bosić and Ivana Lučić worked on the development of the street art map of Rijeka. The project was created on the basis of practical experience in working with the public during Urban Street art expeditions.
Most of the important information about street art in Rijeka is gathered here for the first time, which makes this map the first step in the development of the audience in the field of street art in Rijeka. The map presents three pedestrian routes formed through the project. The routes are adapted to different preferences and the time taken to explore, and each of them encourages one to visit important places and discover hidden street art locations that are often off the usual tourist routes.
Considering the diversity and abundance of street art in Rijeka, as well as the city’s sprawl, this map only provides an overview of the more significant works located near the city center. It is important to note that the map could not cover all the street art in Rijeka. Anyone interested is also encouraged to explore other parts of the city to discover more hidden gems and pieces of street art that may not be shown on this map. The map is published in Croatian and English, and in addition to the printed version, it is also available in digital form. The design of the map is signed by Sanjin Smajlović from Biro 167.
