In the beginning of the summer 2012, Tomáš Rafa got an official permition for painting the walls in three towns and villages in eastern Slovakia. The first one was a protective wall in Sečovce, the second one was segregation wall in Ostrovany, and the last one was a housing unit in the city district of Michalovce - Angy mlyn. The concept of the project “Sport walls 2012″ is connected to the wider project concerning new nationalism in Slovakia and abroad, to which autor is dedicated for several years. Motive was quite clear: to point out the segregation of one part of the Slovak population and to stress that problems with adaptation of citizens in Slovakia need much more attention and cannot be solved with building a wall, whether we call it sport one or not.

About projects in Sečovce and in Michalovce we were already writing. Tomáš Rafa has visited the settlement in Ostrovany already in a year 2010, after a tragedy in Devínska Nová Ves, when on the wall appeared word “Sorry”. After two years, conditions in settlement has changed and this contributed to the integration of the Roma population. Residents of Ostrovany are currently receiving financial subsidies from Building savings, which helps them to change wooden shacks which they lived in till now, for brick bulidings. The difference between Michalovce and Sečovce on one side and between Ostrovany on the other, was in the approach of their inhabitants.

That time the team was consisting, beside author of the project, of Tomáš Rafa who comes from Žilina and artists Marek Halász from Bratislava and Igor Babiak from civil association “Periférne centrá” - “Peripheral centers” in Dubravica. Their subject of interest became a construction, in public also known as “fence”, which separates private properties of inhabitants of Ostrovany from Roma settlement. It is 110 metres long and 2 - 3 metres high. By the words of the mayor, Cyril Revák, construction was build to defend the agricultural products from the theft of inhabitants of neighboring settlement.

In Ostrovany the atmosphere was not so friendly as in Sečovce. Inhabitants of the village did not have any interest to work for free. After some time a few of them came to the place of the event and they wanted to help with work if they would be payed and if they would get cigarettes in return. Although artists agreed on their terms, on the next day only one of them came. At night they were lining the guiding lines with laser water vague by themselves, so the next day they could start with painting the coloured rainbow stripes. It was very positive, that the children were interested in work with colour, even they knew they are working voluntarily and for free. After unfriendly reaction of their parents, that wanted to get money for their work, children had to stop with painting. However, children came back to apologize about their parents behaviour. Despite of the progress of socialization there is still lacking a common interest and motivation to improve the space in which they live.

During the smaller experiment, Tomáš Rafa and Marek Halász painted the bottom of the appartment block in the city district of Michalovce - Angi mlyn with the same motive as in Sečovce and Ostrovany. This time they were joined by all inhabitants of a ground floor apartment building. Despite of the first objections, concerning the colours in the time of painting the first layers of white, the building was painted in the record speed. Probably to this contributed also the fact that in this same day artists created the sample, where they painted the wall with six colours of the rainbow. This convinced the residents and incourage them to identify themselves with motive. That they enjoyed their work on this project, is evident also by the fact that after the project they spontaneously cleaned the sorroundings of their building.
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Production side of the project Sport wall was put under the roof of Stanica, with support of a grant of the Ministry of Culture SR of the project Košice - European Capital of Culture 2013. The project will continue in other cities and towns in Slovakia. The color of the project was managed by PPG Deco Slovakia, s.r.o. with products zn. PRIMALEX and BALAKRYL.

This project is supported also by Dom farieb, for which we thank them warmly!