The neighbours: process, stories and collective work with Krasimira Butseva, Lilia Topouzova, Julian Chehirian, Lubov Cheresh & Martin Atanasov
8th of July 2024 - 18:30-20:00 @Swimming Pool, Sofia, Bulgaria (the talk will be in Bulgarian)
The team behind the Bulgarian pavilion at the 60th Venice Biennale will discuss the creative processes involved in the installation "The Neighbours." The authors Krasimira Butseva, Lilia Topuzova, and Julian Chehirian, along with members of the production team Martin Atanasov and Lubov Cheresh, will participate in a discussion moderated by Valentin Kalinov. The focus will be on the various ideas, practices, and collaborative methods foundational to the project.
In 2022, the installation, along with parts of the team's research, was showcased at the artists' studio on Georgi Benkovski Street 40 (curated by Vessela Nozharova) and at the Sofia City Art Gallery (curated by Krassimir Iliev). In 2023, parts of it were exhibited at Structura Gallery (curated by Gregor Jansen), the University of Toronto, Canada, and Princeton University, USA. In January 2024, the installation, curated by Vasil Vladimirov, was selected to represent Bulgaria at the 60th Venice Biennale, receiving significant public and critical acclaim in medias such as The Guardian, The Observer, Artforum, ArtReview, The Art Newspaper, Apollo Magazine, Falstaff, Berlin Art Link, Sverige Radio etc.
Learn more about the event here: https://fb.me/e/6LAHK3YLH
The Neighbours: Erased Histories, Traumatic Memory and Collective Care (artist talk) with Julian Chehirian, Lilia Topouzova, Vasil Vladimirov & Krasimira Butseva
6th of July 2024, 19:30 - 20:30 - @ diffrakt | zentrum für theoretische peripherie e.V. Crellestraße 22 10827 Berlin, Germany
The Neighbours is a multimedia installation about how we remember, carry and forget trauma, presented at this year’s Bulgarian Pavilion at the 60th Venice Art Biennale. The exhibition excavates the silenced memories of survivors of state violence from Bulgaria’s socialist era (1945-1989) and explores the latter’s troubling legacy in the present. During this period, countless individuals were sent to forced labour camps without trial, faced imprisonment, systematic persecution, forced resettlement and ethnic assimilation – political dissidents, peasants who refused to give up their land, artists, queer people, Muslim minorities and everyday people who defied the regime’s ideology. Through the interplay of video projections, ambient sounds, and artefacts recovered from the former sites of violence, the installation visually juxtaposes the camps’ material world with the space of the home, evoking how traumatic memories permeate daily life while inviting the audience to bear witness.
Created by a team of artist-researchers working between the archive, the ethnographic encounter and the studio, The Neighbours unsettles the distinction between scholars and artists. It portrays the role of art in tying together knowledge production with the ability to capture affect – something that often cannot be directly documented or made present.
The curator Vasil Vladimirov will be in conversation with the artists and scholars Krasimira Butseva, Julian Chehirian and Lilia Topouzova. The team behind this year’s Bulgarian Pavilion at the Venice Biennale will speak about their methodology of working with silent narratives, trauma, art and history for the past ten years. They will discuss working with purged archives of the Bulgarian secret police, the fragmented recollections of the survivors of political violence, alongside their studio practice, experiments with sound, moving image and installation art, and the concepts behind The Neighbours.
Learn more about the event here: http://diffrakt.space/en/the-neighbours-erased-histories-traumatic-memory-and-collective-care/
The Neighbors: silenced histories of Bulgaria’s state-led violence (spatial audio tour and artist talk) with Julian Chehirian & Krasimira Butseva
3rd of July 2024 - 18:30 - 20:30 @Cell Project Space, London, UK
Join us on Wednesday, 3 July, 6.30pm for a talk with artists and researchers Krasimira Butseva and Julian Chehirian, who will expand on the key concerns behind their project The Neighbours (with artist Lilia Topouzova, curator Vasil Vladimirov), currently representing Bulgaria at the 60th Venice Biennale. The talk continues Cell Project Space’s public programmes’ engagement with the under-acknowledged aspects of ‘Eastern’ Europe’s political history through an artistic lens. It follows Agnė Jokšė and Anastasia Sosunova’s two-person exhibition, Queer 'Eastern' European Anti-Colonial Solidarity Fundraiser, as well as CEED Feminisms research group and public programme.
During the event the artists will present a spatial audio tour of The Neighbours, sharing sounds and fragments from the installation. The sound performance will be followed by an artist talk, discussing the concepts and processes involved when working with political violence, traumatic memory, silenced histories, memorial sites and collective healing. The Neighboursis a multidisciplinary installation, employing found objects, video, and sound design, to convey the stories of those who endured Bulgarian Gulag camps and prisons (1945 to 1989). The installation is currently exhibited in the Bulgarian Pavilion at the 60th Venice Biennale (open until 24th of November 2024).
Learn more about the event:
https://www.cellprojects.org/exhibitions/future
Book your ticket for the event:
https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/the-neighbours-silenced-histories-of-bulgarias-state-led-violence-tickets-919537390087?aff=oddtdtcreator