As part of the Days of European Heritage programme, a panel discussion was held today in the premises of the Federal Ministry of Culture and Sports on the topic “Murals and graffiti – Wall Painting or Resistance to Norms”. The discussion was attended by representatives of relevant institutions (the Commission for the Preservation of National Monuments of Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Sarajevo Cantonal Institute for the Protection of Cultural, Historical and Natural Heritage, the Sarajevo Cantonal Planning Institute, the Municipality of Ilidža and others) and famous mural-painting artists: Benjamin Čengić (from UG “Obojena klapa”), Srđan Marković, Adnan Hamidović Frankie. The discussion was moderated by Aida Bičakčić, curator and manager of the Ars Aevi collection, who emphasised at the very beginning that the essence of this meeting was to create a synergy between experts in the field of cultural heritage protection and the art scene.

Minister Sanja Vlaisavljević greeted the participants and pointed out that “she is happy that the Federal Ministry of Culture and Sports is really becoming a temple of culture and sports thanks to such events and that discussions and cooperation with artists in the Ministry will continue in the future.”

Professor at the Academy of Fine Arts Bojan Hadžihalilović emphasised that bureaucratization was a really serious problem for artists and called on the representatives of the institutions to come up with instructions and guidelines that would facilitate and simplify the process of obtaining permits for painting murals.

Benjamin Čengić pointed out that setting up as many legal locations for painting as possible could reduce vandalism and that his association was working on a law that would concern the creation of murals.

Finally, it was concluded that it was necessary to define a channel between administrative units and artists in order to obtain the necessary permits for painting buildings as simply as possible and to overcome obstacles in this process.