I have been living in the city for a few weeks now. In all of my destinations I photograph graffiti. This art form is unique, inspiring and portrays a true sense of what a society is experiencing. Being in Croatia for the first time, all sites have been new for me. And seeing the interesting graffiti & street art in Split has certainly been one of those things.
Words & Lettering
Every place I have visited since I really started appreciating street art, has had a large number of pictorial pieces. They are beautiful, engaging and unique. Coming to Split from Rome where the picture graffiti is so prevalent, I was expecting a similar trend here.
What I found was the complete opposite. Most of the graffiti is words, well tags. The amount of tagging outside of old town is incessant. I don’t say that in a negative way, in fact it is super interesting.
Besides the usual single colour tags, which probably make up 85% of the graffiti here, another 10% is graphic letters. Bubble letters or jagged fonts, and with perhaps two or three colours.
Many of the words I see are political in nature such as ‘Stop Nato’ or ‘Dalmatian Oil’. But most are simply single names or single words.
Pictorial
The remaining 5% of my estimations have been given over to pictorial form. I have had to hunt high and low for any forms of street art that are not simply words.
None of these images are from sketchy parts of town. These were all found in regular neighbourhoods, walking down streets full of bustling businesses such as grocery stores, schools, bakeries, salons etc.
The streets, alleys and such are almost completely devoid of pictures. I find this so interesting. Like the houses, apartment buildings and parks, most things in this city, again outside of Old Town, are plain and simple. There are few decorative features on houses. Virtually no decorative features on apartment complexes. Most buildings are square or rectangular with no adornment what so ever.
There is a stark beauty to the city that is unmatched in what I have seen elsewhere. The utilitarian and simplistic nature of the architecture is revealing.
The one area where there is pictorial street art used? The advertisement of the City of Split’s football team! Bright primary colours and huge logo’s of the team can be seen regularly throughout any neighbourhood. I can tell there is some serious competition in this country between city clubs!
It may look like there are many pictures in this blog post, but it has taken me literally weeks to gather these few street art images.
Spending time in Split, especially outside of the tourist zone, has been fascinating. I am so lucky that I have the opportunity to explore this interesting and diverse city. There is an incredible amount of history here that exudes itself through the architecture, people and landscape.
