Dear Fabrikant, come join us on November 11 at 6 p.m. to the Traveler’s Club to immerse ourselves together in the Vlachian treasures of the villages of Deleyna, Koshava, and Yasen, just as our team and the participants (residents) in our residencies this year did while living there!

We unanimously believe that the most valuable local treasures are the local residents and our communication with them—with their lessons in unity, hospitality, humor, and care for their cultural treasures.

Through communicating with them, we also found out:

• what is Vlach dialect;
• Vlach songs and dances;
• architectural heritage and the so-called zhugraveli;
• the amazing Vlach funeral rites.

Our local coordinator from the village of Deleyna, ethnographer and researcher of Vlach culture, Desislava Bozhidarova, further explains about the last mentioned: “Funeral and memorial customs and rituals are the most conservative and have been preserved in their entirety to this day, and this is not a taboo subject for the Vlachs. When the moment of death arrives, the living must ensure that the deceased travels as quickly, easily, and safely as possible along the path that awaits them. This is a long transition, a change of status. The deceased must take their place among their loved ones in the other world, and this must be done without harming the living. Because at the very beginning of the transition, there is the danger of the intermediate space where wandering souls dwell.

To remain in the middle means to remain in chaos. And to prevent this from happening, there are a number of ritual ceremonies and actions that must be performed from the moment of death. A unique and very ancient custom associated with memorial rituals is still preserved today in the Vlach villages. Ora de Pomana is a ritual dance, part of the memorial rites. The custom is performed on the second day of Easter on the meadow at the foot of the Albotin Rock Monastery or at the Sunday horo in the center of the village.”

On November 11, we will tell (and show) you more about all this together with some of our residents from Baba Residence 2024, as well as Desislava Bozhidarova.

This year, the Baba Residence initiative once again landed on the banks of the Danube in the three Vlach villages of Deleyna, Kosava, and Yasen. In addition to living alongside and sharing experiences with the locals, we have an important new collaborative mission — to develop creative tourism experiences based on local culture that will help build a better future for these villages. You will have the opportunity to be among the first to participate in them if you come on the 11th!

We thank the Travelers’ Club for the truly hospitable welcome!

Cover photos – Bogomil Ivanov
Our residency this year was part of the “Development of Tourism in Northwestern Bulgaria and along the Danube River” competition organized by the America for Bulgaria Foundation.

This is our first attempt to map out the scope of Baba Residence’s activities and results over the past nine years. It is a beautiful work by the magical illustrator Eva Markova!

If you want to get an overview of what we have been doing with a bunch of village lovers in villages across almost the whole of Bulgaria up to and including 2023, you can zoom in on the small rectangles and read.

Of course, since then there has been one more Residence and many other untold stories and events, but we keep you updated on them on social media and in our newsletter.

If you happen to know of good ways to visually and interactively compile such a wide range of experiences digitally, please write to us! One such map certainly cannot contain all the micro-magic and rural-urban connections that come true, and their beneficial consequences.

See you soon and enjoy browsing!

Photo – Bozhana Staneva / resident in Baba Residence 2024

Happy new week, dear IFactorian! We are starting it with some news that we have been eager to share with you since March, and we hope that we will soon have the opportunity to do so in person! We have compiled our most concentrated insights, experiences, and practical guidelines for organizing an artist residency in a village in Bulgaria in our Baba Residence Handbook! It is available for free!

If you want to contribute to the revitalization of your village or neighborhood, now is the time to take action and you will have a trust-worthy companion!

There are many villages in Bulgaria where the potential and resources allow for a new strategy for development and viability, which engages and activates both the cultural heritage and the local energy. We are a team of three, and although we work with dozens of artists and experts, 30 villages, and now over 150 residents who have given their time and expertise to villages over the past 10 years, we realize that the effort has no chance if we rely solely on our own resources. And the rate of depopulation and lack of adequate policies remain the same.

As you will understand from the handbook, being part of the Residence team is a constant lesson in more empathetic living, valuable encounters with Bulgaria’s ethnographic diversity, and the common laws that shape human relationships. And most importantly, in our common opinion, Baba Residence is an opportunity to cultivate a healthy and humane patriotism that is not based on rejection and fear of the unknown and diversity.

You will find in the handbook:

• how to organize your Baba Residence in the village you love – step by step;
• what are the stages, preparation, and resources needed;
• what are the difficulties we have encountered over the years and how we can help you avoid them;
• our personal insights from working in villages, as well as those of a mayor, host, artist, and community center representative we work with;
• how we can help if you want to work to revive villages in Bulgaria;*
• lots of photos from the field of ourselves and our residents.

*Exactly, yes! One of our main messages is that our country needs a huge resource of expert readiness for intensive cooperation and interaction to help with each of the issues that determine the well-being of small settlements. Our most successful experience is in creating intergenerational communities and improving access to culture, but there are many other issues that determine the prosperity of villages: access to education, healthcare, good infrastructure, energy efficiency… We are here to share our experience and support you in the process that you or someone you share the handbook with decides to take!

You can contact us with any questions at info@ideasfactorybg.org or at the phone number listed in our contact details.

The layout and design of the handbook are created by our trusted Alexandra Nikolova / Ål Nik.

The handbook was made possible thanks to our project “Revitalizing Villages through Creative Activities.” It is implemented with financial support provided by Iceland, Liechtenstein, and Norway through the EEA Financial Mechanism and the Norwegian Financial Mechanism in Bulgaria. The main objective of the project is to contribute to the creation of a sustainable cultural-entrepreneurial model that addresses the depopulation of villages by providing access to culture in them.

What prevents Bulgarians from attending cultural events and participating in creative activities? How can we address the huge inequality in access to culture based on place of residence and social status? What can be done to change these trends?

Come to our second event related to the 2023 Access to Culture Index on October 16 at 6:30 p.m. at the Goethe-Institut Bulgaria (1 Budapest Street, Sofia)!

Yanina Taneva-Georgieva (from our team) and Diana Andreeva-Popordanova (Observatory for the Economics of Culture) will present the national sociological study on access to culture in 2023, which we commissioned from the Alfa Research agency and called the “Access to Culture Index”. They will present specific policy proposals in the field of culture that respond to the main cases from the study.
It is being carried out in partnership with the Observatory for the Economy of Culture and the Goethe Institute Bulgaria.

Some of the data and conclusions we will go through live:

• 72.6% did not visit the library even once in 2023;

• 62.6% did not go to the theater even once;

• 82.5% did not attend a classical music concert, opera, or ballet even once.

The study itself is available in summary form (in Bulgarian) and can be viewed at this link.

You can learn more about this topic here from Yanina Taneva-Georgieva and Diana Andreeva-Popiordanova in their interview with Maria Chereshova on the program “Who’s Talking?” on Darik Radio.

This is the second national representative survey we have commissioned for a second consecutive year (the first was for 2022 as part of our “Right to Culture Laboratory” project with the National Culture Fund), as these indicators had not been researched for more than seven years prior to that.

Photo – Viktoriya Velcheva / resident in Baba Residence 2023

Schedule of the microevents

11:00 OPENING of the exhibition at the abandoned school with the art pieces of all participants

11:00 – 23:45 POP-UP exhibition of the painter Elena Nazarova in Deleyna’s public spaces

13:00 – 14:30 SHARED MEAL with the culinary specialties of Deleyna village – at the school’s yard

19:00 – 20:30 DOCUMENTARY PERFORMANCE – at the theatre hall of the community center

21:00 DANCING at the village square

Get in contact in case you would like to stay over at the village. The artists are ready to help by organising your stay at local hosts in need, for a symbolic fee. They have also discovered a suitable camping space in the village.

What are we searching for through this residence and what issues does it outline?

During the last 3 weeks in Deleyna, seven Bulgarian and four foreign artists (through online participation) were searching for a working formula for a contemporary living village, nurtured by an access to culture and art. They were trying to “rehabilitate the muscle of public imagination, which nowadays is not able to imagine the village in a modern way ,” as Yanina Taneva from the Factory summarizes.

“We cannot substitute for public policy, which, sadly, is absent – adds Yanina Taneva. – The trends in the villages are irreversible and this is clear from а well known national strategy, written in 2007. Therefore, in order to stop or at least slow down the ones that still can be reversed, lots of common effort is needed. In the villages, there are several main problems: lack of democracy, because people cannot vote for their mayor, in case there are less than 250 people in the village; lack of public health services, no access to education or culture. We believe that education and culture are the foundation that is needed for change. And when the traditional Bulgarian village comes together with the young people from the city, who are carrying a different type of knowledge and culture with them, new solutions and new ways can be born. Welcome to the village of Deleyna this Saturday to experience the results of the artists and the Northwestern Bulgarian village, which exists in the bubble of social and cultural monotony.

IDEAS FACTORY Association invited 11 international artist to co-create and rediscover a new vision of a contemporary Bulgarian village through the means of art and community-specific experience

The first open call for artists in Radical Imagination residency project of Ideas Factory (Sofia, Bulgaria), part of Democracy Needs Imagination programme of European Cultural Foundation, was originally designed to bring 10 artists from Bulgaria and countries throughout Europe for 1 month in a Bulgarian Northwestern village called Deleyna.

The virus outbreak changed the possible dynamics of the initial idea and the team of Ideas Factory decided to make an online – offline version of the residency, including the artists, who don’t live in Bulgaria, as online creators and contributors.

The second round of the call resulted in 11 selected artists, 7 of which will be local residents, living in the village for 3 weeks, from 23rd of August until 13th of September 2020.

The topic of Radical Imagination Artist Residency

The village of Deleyna in Bulgaria, like most of the villages in South-eastern Europe, is situated in a social, cultural and geographical periphery and is strongly affected by contemporary political and economic processes. The direct consequences of this are poverty, depopulation, lack of access to culture (as well as health care, education and economic progress), and last but not least, the broken connection between the generations.

Some of the topical questions we would like to ask you to reflect on during the residency, are: Is it possible and how can we “think about the village in the future tense”? How is the public imagination born – the one that would allow us to “think about the village in the future tense”?

During the search for an answer to the question, how can we, through the means of culture, “rehabilitate” the muscle of public imagination, which nowadays fails at leaving room for imagination regarding the village. What can bring it back to life – empathy or provocation? Which fragments of the past still hold value today, and which are the ones of the present, that can add value nowadays?  

We will look, together with the participating artists, for bold, unexplored until now, but also necessary for the community approaches, which engage the artistic imagination and the means of art as driving forces for positive change.

The participating artists

Their creative disciplines vary widely and the online international artists will collaborate with the local artist residents who will do the field work and communication with the local people, mapping of needs and resources, documentation of the intangible and tangible cultural heritage.

All participants met during a Zoom meeting and will have regular online meetings and knowledge and ideas exchange before and during the residency.

The groups consists of Anna Dantchev (Finnland/ Bulgaria) – a professional singer and ethnomusicologist; Dimitra Kaneva (Bulgaria) – actress and theater maker; Sarah Craycraft (Bulgaria/ USA) ethnographer and handicraft researcher; Elena Stoycheva (Bulgaria/ Austria) – architect and video artist; Yonko Dimitrov (Bulgaria) – an actor and video maker; Pavel Ruzyak (Czech Republic) – video artist; Kathryn Mitchell (Bulgaria/ USA) – singer and photographer; Sonya Pencheva (Bulgaria) – photographer; Xiaoji Song (China/ Germany) – actress and theater maker, Elena Nazarova (Bulgaria) – illustrator; and Mo Sirra (Netherlands) – researcher and installation and performance artist.

The residency’s end will be marked by a community event, organized by the local residents and Ideas Factory, during which the artistic results of the participating residents will be exhibited – in whichever stage of realization they are at.

More Information 

Website article <-

Open call <- 

Facebook event as an open call <- 

5 BULGARIAN and 5 INTERNATIONAL ARTISTS WILL EXPLORE AND SHAPE A VISION FOR A CONTEMPORARY LIVELY VILLAGE

Radical imagination in rural realities

We invite artists to participate in an art residency in the village of DELEYNA near Vidin from the 24^th of August to the 13^th of September 2020.

The unexpected state of emergency caused by the Covid-19 pandemic led to some changes in our initial plan regarding the format of the art residency for Bulgarian and foreign artists to live together with the locals in the village of Deleyna (near Vidin) and create in cooperation with each other.

After talking to the locals and discussing the possible scenarios within the frame of this new situation, our team adapted the format so that it best addresses the current conditions and needs. It is of highest priority to keep the elderly in the villages safe, while simultaneously trying to bring more diversity to their lives after the period of social isolation, and lastly, to search for a shared vision regarding the contemporary model of the dynamic village. 

The Residence has focused on the connection between the generations, as well as between the rural and the urban culture. The recent need for physical distance made it more challenging.

At the same time, this current situation brought more light to the injustice and the unequal distribution of resources, both cultural and economic, and inspired new forms of solidarity and compassion, which bring hope for more empathetic interactions. 

TOPIC

The village of Deleyna in Bulgaria, like most of the villages in South-eastern Europe, are situated in a social, cultural and geographical periphery and are strongly affected by contemporary political and economic processes (happening in the rest of Europe?). The direct consequences of this are poverty, depopulation, lack of access to culture (as well as health care, education and economic progress), and last but not least, the broken connection between the generations.

Some questions based on the topic, we would like to ask you to reflect on during the residency, are: Is it possible and how can we “think about the village in the future tense”? How is the public imagination born – the one that would allow us to “think about the village in the future tense”?

During the search for an answer to the question, how can we, through the means of culture, “rehabilitate” the muscle of public imagination, which nowadays fails at leaving room for imagination regarding the village. What can bring it back to life – empathy or provocation? Which fragments of the past still hold value today, and which are the ones of the present, that can add value nowadays?  

We depend on bold, unexplored until now, but also necessary for the community approaches, which engage the artistic imagination and the means of art as driving forces for positive change.

PARTICIPATION

All 10 participants will be artists from different disciplines, who have strong interest in the topic and previous experience related to socially engaged artistic practices and community work.

The participation will unfold in teams of two or more artists – one Bulgarian and one international artist. The Bulgarian artist will be living in the village and his/ her partner artist will contribute with his/ her own knowledge and ideas online.

The artist living in the village will be responsible for the on-field research and communication with local people while the international partner will have a reflective and conceptualizing role. Both of them will develop an artistic project, which will reflect the specifics of the place and the inspiration drawn from the sincere conversations with the locals. The results may take the form of an audio-visual work, a documentary, installation, comics, interactive intervention, illustrations or some other artistic medium.

The participants will be given a compilation of diverse resources and data bases, gathered during the last 5 years of realizing Baba Residence initiative in different Bulgarian villages. The artists who will be living in the village could use the local cultural hub (chitalishte) in Deleyna village as a creative studio.

RESULTS

Artistic results, depending on each of the participant’s specific discipline of creation, will have the chance to be exposed during a final community event in the village – an exhibition. After the residency, the artistic materials will become part of a travelling exhibition in Bulgarian cities as well.

LODGING, TRAVEL AND OTHER COSTS

Residents who will live in the village will be provided free of charge:

* accommodation and food during their stay at the homes of local people;

* work space at local community centers;

* travel costs.

All the 10 artists will recieve a honorarium for their research and work in the village.

They will have a small production budget for materials (up to 200 BGN) as use of local resources is strongly encouraged. Any kind of assistance from the curator and project team will be provided to the artists during the residency period.

Available residency vacancies: 10

Application deadline: 17 JULY 2020

Announcement of selected artists: 20 JULY 2020

Residency Duration: 21 days 

The residency is part of the European Cultural Foundation‘s endorsed cultural and social-entrepreneurial initiatives across Europe in the Democracy Needs Imagination program.

Our trustworthy local partner is Vidin Fund Chitalishte.

* * *

For questions -> write to us at info@ideasfactorybg.org

In this weird period of social distancing and panic which is hard to have a complete control of, it’s once again art’s duty to raise our spirits higher. Art has the capacity and innate property to bring inspiration and resilience, to bring people closer to each other and pave way to solidarity.

The emergency state which led to the closing of all cultural centers and institutions and make people stay at their homes cannot stop the urge and need of connection between artists and audiences.

Thus we give a brave beginning of our Homestage calendar with online artistic events, in which you can participate straight from your homes.

Concerts, performances, readings, screenings, fine and applied art, workshops will give us new spring fuel, ideas, meanings and joy. A home festival to attend in slippers for immunoprotective emotions :)

We invite all artists who feel the urge to be part of this, to invite us in their homes at http://bit.ly/domashenkalendar.

Facebook live will be our way to stream all of the content.

The audience is invited to support the artists will voluntary donations at their personal online platforms, Revolut or at their bank account.

Let’s jump on the wings of art together! While staying at home :)