Podcast in English
Text size
Bulgarian National Radio © 2025 All Rights Reserved

Special Bulgarian events for 24 May at the Venice Biennale 

4
The art installation "The Neighbours"
Photo: bulgarianpavilionvenice.art

Visitors to the 60th Venice Biennale Arte 2024 will be able to participate in the celebration of 24 May - the Day of Saints Cyril and Methodius, of the Bulgarian alphabet, education and culture, and of Slavic literature. The Bulgarian Pavilion at the International Art Exhibition will mark the 24th of May with two radically opposite in emotions but significant events. At 11.30 in the Titian Hall of the Don Orione Cultural Centre, where the Bulgarian art installation "The Neighbours" is located, the discussion "Remembering and Witnessing - Local and Global Contexts" will take place. 

The Neighbours
The focus is on how personal memories shape our understanding of historical events, the role of artists and researchers in preserving the memory of political violence, and how testimonies and artistic practices can influence public policies and social justice. 


The speakers in the discussion, which will be held in Bulgarian and English, are Prof Dr Daniela Koleva - historian and anthropologist, Prof Dr Venelin Shurelov - visual artist, Dr Valentin Kalinov - clinical psychologist and philosopher, and Elza Jermanova, whose mother was in the Lovech political prison camp in the 1960s.

Krasimira Butseva, Julian Chehirian and Liliya Topuzova,
Of course, Nadezhda Dzhakova, the commissioner for the participation of Bulgaria in the 60th International Art Exhibition of the Venice Biennale in 2024, the curator Vasil Vladimirov and the authors of the project "The Neighbours" Liliya Topuzova, Krasimira Butseva and Julian Chehirian will also take part in the discussion, the organisers said.



And as we pointed out at the beginning, on 24 May, two events of contrasting emotions will come together at the Venice Biennale. After the unsettling theme of memory, testimony and trauma, the Bulgarian Pavilion will be filled with youthful exuberance with the creative workshop for schoolchildren "Stranoprijemnitsa". 

Italian youngsters from the Dante Alighieri State Primary School in Venice will learn little-known facts about the Bulgarian alphabet and how it spread around the world, such as the fact that 252 million people in 23 countries write in Cyrillic. The students will also find out what a Biennale is, explore the Bulgarian pavilion with the project team of The Neighbours and, last but not least, create. 

"The studio is a metaphor of a dinner table. It aims to draw attention to tolerance, to explore the opposites of home - foreign, familiar - unfamiliar - says its organiser Teodora Baharova, adding:  - "Earth and people, nature, traditions and herbs, colours and customs from all over the world will meet at a welcoming common table in two distant and parallel realities, two lands at the crossroads - Bulgaria and Venice...".

Photos: bulgarianpavilionvenice.art, the team of the Bulgarian Pavilion in Venice, Tsvetelina Belutova, Martin Atanasov and William Nelson
Translated and posted by Elizabeth Radkova


Последвайте ни и в Google News Showcase, за да научите най-важното от деня!
Listen to the daily news from Bulgaria presented in "Bulgaria Today" podcast, available in Spotify.

Gallery

More from category

Film about Bulgarian composer Dimitar Nenov will be screened in New York

On November 11 at 6:30 p.m., the Consulate General of Bulgaria in New York will host a special screening of a short film (18 min.) dedicated to the 120th anniversary of the prominent Bulgarian intellectual, composer and pianist Dimitar Nenov . During..

published on 11/6/25 9:40 AM

Exhibition "Memories of Antiquity" will be unveiled at the Burgas History Museum

On November 6 at 4 p.m., an exhibition will open at the Archaeological Exhibition of the Regional History Museum in Burgas on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the rescue archaeological research by specialists from the Burgas Museum of a rich grave..

published on 11/6/25 6:15 AM
Australian author Joanna Murray-Smith

Australian author Joanna Murray-Smith visits Sofia

Australian author Joanna Murray-Smith is coming to Sofia at the invitation of the Nikolay Binev Youth Theater. She is visiting Bulgaria for the first time between November 5 and 9, 2025 for a specially organized "Panorama of Joanna Murray-Smith", which..

published on 11/4/25 2:26 PM