Imagine a city where graffiti wasn’t illegal, a city where everybody could draw wherever they liked. Where every street was awash with a million colors and little phrases. where standing at the bus stop was never boring. A city that felt like a party where everyone was invited, not just the estate agents and barons of big business. Imagine a city like that and stop leaning against the wall – it’s wet

-Justa Jester

We opened our Facebook account and came across this Status update in the News Feed and felt the immediate time/space propulsion back to Metelkova Mesto in Ljubljana, Slovenia. While we do believe there are some boundaries to the canvas, Justa Jester (aka David Cymerman) verbally paints a scene sensory delight, one that we have had the opportunity to experience in the capital city of Slovenia.

Metelkova Mesto (“Metelkova City”) is an autonomous squat in the capitol city of Slovenia. A former barracks of the former Yugoslavian Army, turned artist’s settlement. We spent our first night in Ljubljana partying here, and were immediately sparked into dreams of an autonomous artist’s center in Chicago. An entire block dedicated to whatever people want it to be, to be painted and repainted, boring brick wall defacing turned into dialogue. The millions of expressway underpasses turned into color chambers and parks like the one at the Kennedy and Logan Blvd. Maybe all of the Gold Coast actually gets painted gold spattered by, largely, incomprehensible sentence fragments (like here). Anything but the tan box treatment of the Daley’s Graffiti Busters. Save the busters for the gang turf war tags on random joe’s cornerstones, or better yet, turn the Graffiti Busters into full-blown Graffiti Artists that turn crap tags into reputable works. Plain and Simple turn the world’s vast Interstitial Space over to the people and the world will become a more colorful place!

Always a work in progress at Metelkova Mesto (photo by BirdonBike)

and endless Colorful backdrop in Metelkova (photo by BirdonBike)

Metelkavo Mesto (photo by BirdonBike)

We aren't just talk Graffiti, are we? (photo by BirdonBike)

(photo by BirdonBike)

(photo by BirdonBike)

Interstitial Space along the Danube in Vienna (photo by BirdonBike)

Vienna Graffiti (photo by BirdonBike)

Gray is better when it is covered in Colors ((photo by BirdonBike, Vienna)

Now for our call for submissions or a call to artists; Our friend Necip from Guzelcamli (see here and here) has been battling the Turkish beton (turkish for concrete) movement for some thirty years. He has gone from having a view of the Greek Island of Samos in the Aegean Sea to being blocked in on both sides by the condos of Aydinites and Izmirites who occasionally inhabit them in the summer months.

The picture below shows the remarkable canvas that was erected a little over a year ago that needs some coats of paint. Necip is a good man and we are sure that if one was so inclined to take a vacation to turkey and work on this awesome blank canvas, one could score a pretty good deal on accomodation. Hell we dug a hole in his garden for a drastically reduced rate. Not to mention, Necip’s food is amazing and his capacity for long nights of wine and music is boundless.

If you feel like you need a vacation and want to make some art in the process, let us know. We can put you in touch.

Necip's Blank Canvas. An artists dream is yours for the taking, so long as you can keep up with Necip's cooking at the Ecer Pension, (on the Aegean Sea in Guzelcamli, Turkey)