National Library “Ivan Vazov” Plovdiv, Bulgaria
CUT-OUTS | 2021
The project addresses Bulgarian social imaginary in the transitional period after the desintegration of the Soviet Union (1989~2000s), and the way this process continues to resonate with contemporary consciousness. Through a series of artworks, the project tackles the role of the public library, ideology and infrastructure as manifested in material constructions, and how they actively co-create social identity, subjectivity, and imaginary, but also become sites of subversion.
The first piece is centered around the production of knowledge and books. Through interviews of people aged 30~ to 50 ~years, I aim to identify what was the literature that framed the active social imagination and the way the youth of the transition anticipated the future. Furthermore, my goal is to tackle the role of the public library as a vital site of social and cultural life which has been continuously undermined. Today the number of people visiting libraries is extremely small, while the libraries have not been modernised and function in the same way as 30 years ago. Based on research and interviews, I will select a bibliography that will be subject to artistic interventions.
The project addresses Bulgarian social imaginary in the transitional period after the desintegration of the Soviet Union (1989~2000s), and the way this process continues to resonate with contemporary consciousness. Through a series of artworks, the project tackles the role of the public library, ideology and infrastructure as manifested in material constructions, and how they actively co-create social identity, subjectivity, and imaginary, but also become sites of subversion.
The first piece is centered around the production of knowledge and books. Through interviews of people aged 30~ to 50 ~years, I aim to identify what was the literature that framed the active social imagination and the way the youth of the transition anticipated the future. Furthermore, my goal is to tackle the role of the public library as a vital site of social and cultural life which has been continuously undermined. Today the number of people visiting libraries is extremely small, while the libraries have not been modernised and function in the same way as 30 years ago. Based on research and interviews, I will select a bibliography that will be subject to artistic interventions.
A copy of Bulgakov’s “The Master and Margarita” from 1968
Opening of the new building of the library (1974)
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