Balkan ours solo show , EEP Berlin, Berlin, Germany, 2019.
BALKAN OURS (2016-2019)
photography, installation
Balkan ours is a three-year long study of spaces of political violence scattered across Bulgaria. I visited and documented more than fifteen of the locations of forced labour camps and mass graves from the communist regime (1946-1989). These spaces are recalled in the numerous witness testimonies of survivors, and some of them are mentioned in the Secret State Security’s archival files. But currently most of them bear almost no signifiers of their traumatic past, since the former camp buildings have been erased. In addition, there is still no official and national narrative about the political terror of the past, neither there is a memorial museum or monument of all victims of the communist system. Thus these spaces and their victims remain forgotten and absent from contemporary Bulgarian history.
Forced labour camp near Lovech, 2018.
Forced labour camp Bogdanov Dol, Pernik, 2018.
Forced labour camp Belene, island Persin, 2018.
Wave in Osam, Lovech, 2018.
Forced labour camp Belene, island Persin, 2018.
Reservoir Vacha, Krichim, 2018.
Forced labour camp near Lovech, 2018.
Forced labour camp Belene, island Persin, 2018.
Forced labour camp near Lovech, 2018.
The Danube river, 2018.
Forced labour camp Belene, island Persin, 2018.
Images 1&2: Art Start, Credo Bonum Gallery, Sofia, Bulgaria 2020;
Images 3&4: Balkan ours, EEP Berlin, Berlin, Germany, 2019;
Image 5: Photography&Sculpture, AMP Studios, South Bermondsey Art Trail, London, 2019.
All rights reserved. 2023.