Skip to main content

Tolerance Posters Vandalism in Belgrade

On September 18, 2025, we held the opening of a beautifully displayed Tolerance Poster Show at Belgrade Fortress (Kalemegdan) in Belgrade, Serbia.
The show was a part of the broader Tolerance Campaign — a joint initiative of the United Nations and the Council of Europe launched earlier this year to promote inclusion and counter hate speech. The exhibition underscores efforts to use art, education, and public engagement to challenge prejudice and strengthen solidarity.
But that didn’t last long. After being hung, the posters of Andrzej Pagowski of Poland, Blazo Kovacevic of Montenegro, and Levente Bendek of Romania were soon vandalized. The poster of Levente Bendek was vandalized repeatedly. First, somebody drew a skinhead symbol and scratched homophobic slurs. Then, someone ripped the rainbow flag depicted in the poster. After that, even more hateful messages and symbols were drawn over a rainbow flag that continues to be torn.
So much for tolerance.
Unfortunately, this happens very often, but exclusively in Eastern European countries. Posters are vandalized, ripped, covered with hate speech and symbols, and even stolen. In the case of the show at Timisoara, Romania, posters were taken from the show and burned on YouTube after a local right-wing politician gave a speech railing against the same posters earlier that day. Similar events took place in Bosnia, Croatia, Poland, Russia, Slovakia, Slovenia, and now in Serbia too.
 





 
 


Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Poster Challenge 6: International Student Poster Exhibition

Krakow’s poster columns, which until recently showcased posters from  the Tolerance Poster Show , are now hosting an exhibition featuring posters created by students as part of the international competition  Poster Challenge 6 . This event, which began as a modest initiative for students from a single university, has grown into a global competition attracting participants from around the world—from Taiwan to the United States. This year’s sixth edition received more than 2,200 submissions. From all entries, the jury selected 102 posters, now displayed on poster columns in Krakow’s historic Kazimierz district from April 27th to May 11th. Each poster was created in response to daily prompts sent by the organizers. This unique format – challenging participants to design within a 24-hour timeframe – is, as the organizers emphasize,  “proof of the ability to formulate a quick and precise visual statement – a skill invaluable in today’s fast-paced, ever-chan...
Post a Comment
Read more

Tolerance Walk in Kraków

On April 25th, a group of educators and students from the  Institute of Art and Design at UKEN Kraków   took part in a walk along the Tolerance Poster Show route. The rainy weather did not stop the participants from engaging in discussions about the role of art and design in promoting and celebrating tolerance. More about the Tolerance Poster Show in Kraków  here .  
Post a Comment
Read more

Tolerance Project—Special Award For Social Justice Achievement

Established in 1940, Print Magazine is one of the most influential design magazines. It just announced its   Craft and Creativity 2025 Print Award winners . We are very pleased to let you know that the Tolerance Project won the "Special Award For Social Justice Achievement". "The Tolerance Project, which began in 2017, is a traveling poster exhibit, organized by Mirko Ilić, that celebrates and honors the starting point of all meaningful discourse: Tolerance. The Tolerance Project has brought a message of social acceptance to more than 500,000 people through 216 exhibitions in fifty countries worldwide. The posters appear in public spaces—in parks, on university campuses, even on buses—thus engaging with a wide cross-section of the population. Artists from every nation are asked only to illustrate the word 'tolerance' in their native language."  
Post a Comment
Read more