Slavic Tales

The ‘Slavic Tales’ exhibition invites you to our collective home where we are always welcome. We will introduce you to this universal "home" where, according to Western standards, you arrive in formal attire but are quickly changed into knitted slippers and a tracksuit to make you more comfortable and "free" in Balkan terms. In the living room, the classic appetisers and candy (Sezoni, Amphora, or Chernomorets, depending on the guests’ preferences), homemade wine or rakia in a water bottle and welcoming eyes await you. Crossing the threshold of Block No.1989 and Apartment No.2007, you will be greeted by a transitional space, calmly frozen between the socialist past and democratic future, between the old and the new, between rules and chaos - where political concepts redundantly fade in the
face of people and their authentic trace. The home inevitably reveals the essence of its owners and, in this case, an entire domestic culture sealed in familiar details - crystal sets in the old living room units, concrete mosaics, ice cream boxes filled with stuffed cabbage rolls, the bar with treats (for guests only) and doilies. Whether in the form of a bright memory or neglected present, these cultural elements are part of every Bulgarian’s life, yet somehow remain hidden behind the curtain and deliberately pushed to the peripheries of our social consciousness.

Unlike its Western version, the image of this reality rarely appears in the media spotlight and whenever it does it’s usually negatively framed - as the lair of the Eastern European villain in American action movies or tragicomedy on our own stage. By empathetically representing our most ordinary post-Soviet daily life in miniatures, ‘Slavic Tales’ raises the question of Bulgarian identity and what is worthy of having a place under its umbrella - is there room for something other than our beautiful folklore, which lives somewhere in our glorious past? Can we finish up its underpainting with the colours that are currently outlining Bulgaria’s image stroke by stroke - panel blocks, sauerkraut jars, green benches and their charm, that unfolds before our eyes every day but not everyone can see? We invite you to examine this beauty under our microscope in the exhibited miniatures and perhaps start noticing it everywhere around you.