Amateur graffiti contest at Metelkova Mesto, Ljubljana

Metelkova Mesto happens to be one of my favourite places in this town. For those of you who are not familiar with Ljubljana, until 1991 Metelkova Mesto was the location of military barracks of the Yugoslav People's Army. After Slovenia declared independence and the Yugoslav army left, the place was squatted by several artists, musicians, students, etc. and became somewhat of a centre for underground/alternative culture. It is also the location of a wonderful youth hostel called "Celica" (The Cell), which is a former military prison (each prison cell was converted into a bedroom-- you can read more about the place here.)
Anyhow, I won't get into anymore of the place's history in this post, as you can all see by the title, it's supposed to be about a graffiti contest...
I saw some posters announcing this contest that was organized by a secondary school students' association. I wasn't quite sure exactly what to expect as I've never attended a graffiti contest before.
I arrived there a bit late, the contest had already started. From what I found out, each contender was given 8 cans of spray paint and 3 hours time.
Well, I'm not an artist, nor am I an art critic, but I'd have to say, that some of these young artists have a lot of potential. Here are a few shots of them at work:








While this was happening, some other kids tried to demonstrate their breakdancing skills (or lack thereof) to various rap and hiphop tunes....




Finally, the 3 hours were up... The judges walked around, rated the work and made their decision....

Here are the winners :


First prize




Second prize




Third prize


Oh, and here is a possible contender for the 2016 contest, getting an early start! ;)





These and the rest of the pics from the contest can be seen here.

As it is Metelkova is already the host of lots of interesting and unusual graffiti and other works of art... I'll end this post with some examples...

The Poem Lasting Fifteen Minutes

Count to sixty,
fifteen times.
(I might have been famous then.
You might have missed it.)

New addition to the blogging world...

I would like to announce that my dearest has officially joined the world of blogging... sort of an on-line gallery of his photographs. There's some really great stuff here and I'm not just saying that because he's someone I love like crazy.

Check it out here!





photo by Omar N.

Happy Birthday Ata....

You know I would never forget your birthday. You would have been 78 today. I miss you. I can't believe it has been it has been 7 years since I lost you. I can't believe it has been over 7 years since our last conversation over the phone. I can't believe it has been almost 8 years since we last sat together face to face in the car on the way to the airport. I remember that converation so well. We cleared a lifetime's worth of stuff up during that talk. When I said we'd continue it on my next summer break, you looked at me and said: "Mucka, naslednje leto me ne bo." ("Kitten, I won't be here next year.") I didn't want to believe it. I still don't.
I'm sorry I wasn't there with you the last days. I'm sorry that we played answering-machine-tag that week after the New Year's... I'm sorry that I only found out before it was already too late to be with you; the phone call I got from Mom saying: "Your father is very sick and the doctors can't do anything." The second phone call I got 3 hours later, saying that you were gone.
I'm sorry you weren't there the day I bought my first apartment. I'm sorry you never got to meet the love of my life. I miss how you somehow always knew when I was feeling depressed...like ESP or something...even though I was several thousand kilometres away, whenever I was feeling down, the phone would ring. I'd would answer to hear your voice asking me what was wrong.
Happy Birthday Ata! I will always love you!

Tvoja Mucka