Beyond aesthetics: Ethnographic encounters with murals in Belgrade

The streets of Belgrade are filled with all kinds of street (art) interventions, including murals. In this article I argue that murals are not merely a means for artistic expression or beautification of urban space. While approaching murals from an ecological perspective, that goes beyond their aesthetic and visual aspects, I show that murals are complex entities that not only manage to communicate with each other and take on new meanings over time, but they are also intertwined with the "ecosystem" of the capital and Serbian society. Based on ethnographic encounters with two Belgrade murals, I trace the post-socialist transformation of both Serbian and exYugoslav society, and the way people here deal with shifing temporalities.