operation thunder
/ 2020
photography & moving imageExhibited at
Sofia History Museum, Sofia, Bulgaria, 2022
curator Vessela Nozharova
Toplocentrala, Sofia, Bulgaria, 2022
curator Vessela Nozharova
Structura Gallery, Sofia, Bulgaria, 2024
curator Antoni Rayzhekov
ARTGET Gallery, Belgrade, Serbia, 2022
curator Mia Ćuk
In 1958, State Security led Operation Thunder in Sofia, Bulgaria. The operation came as an echo of the Hungarian revolution which took place several years earlier. 1328 people were arrested - mostly queer and artists, in their 20s - and a part of them were sent to the Belene forced labour camp. They were detained in the Investigative Department of the State Security Service on str. Moskovska 5, Sofia (the current building
housing the Central Archives of Bulgaria). In the purged archive
of the Secret Police, several photographs and documents about the operation have been preserved. In this installation, I work between them, through the creation of speculative archival images of the building on Moskovska 5, within the archival films of the Secret Police, and within a moving image performance in which I suggest potential museum artefacts. This multimedia installation aims to ask questions about the memory of building and spaces, and how it is activated and preserved.
The installation was commissioned by Art Affairs and Documents
Foundation, and funded by Sofia City Council.