Water Tower Art Fest — 20 Years of Independent Artistic Practice
Water Tower Art Fest began in 2006 with a simple act: cleaning the neglected space around an abandoned Water Tower in Sofia’s Lozenets district. What started as a small artist-led initiative gradually evolved into one of Bulgaria’s longest-running independent platforms for contemporary art, socially engaged practice, and cultural decentralization.
For twenty years, the festival has activated abandoned buildings, industrial sites, forgotten urban zones, and peripheral communities through exhibitions, performances, residencies, and public interventions involving over 600 artists from around the world. Working outside conventional institutional frameworks, Water Tower Art Fest has continuously explored the relationship between art, public space, memory, and social transformation.
Since 2016, the project has expanded into a decentralized residency platform across Bulgaria, bringing artistic processes to places often excluded from cultural circulation. This shift transformed the festival from a single-location event into a long-term network of exchange, empathy, and community engagement.
For the 20th anniversary edition of Water Tower Art Fest, we consciously chose not to work through an open call system. Instead, invitations were extended to artists, curators, collaborators, and long-term supporters from different countries with whom we have built relationships of trust, exchange, and shared sensitivity toward the ideas behind the festival over the years.
This decision is both an act of gratitude toward the people who have shaped the journey of Water Tower Art Fest and a statement about the importance of long-term human and artistic connections within an increasingly fragmented cultural environment.
Many of these encounters and collaborations emerged almost intuitively — through the recognition of a common ethical and artistic position that transcended geography, language, and institutional affiliation.
We would like to thank all artists, friends, communities, partners, volunteers, audiences, and supporters who believed in this journey throughout the years and helped transform fragile spaces into places of encounter, reflection, and possibility.
The 20th anniversary edition reflects on questions of freedom, moral integrity, and the fragility of independent artistic practice today. It is not only a retrospective, but a continuation — an archive of actions, relationships, and choices that insist art can still create meaningful connections between people, places, and realities.
At its core, Water Tower Art Fest remains driven by one belief:
that even a single act, carried out with conviction and care, can begin to transform the environment around us.
PROGRAMME — WTAF 2026
20 Years of Water Tower Art Fest
The 2026 anniversary edition of Water Tower Art Fest unfolds across multiple spaces in Sofia, bringing together international artists, performers, curators, musicians, and long-term collaborators whose practices resonate with the festival’s ongoing exploration of artistic freedom, socially engaged art, and alternative cultural environments.
The programme combines exhibitions, performances, video works, sound interventions, public discussions, and live events, activating both symbolic and contemporary cultural spaces throughout the city.
The programme is a living part of the city of Sofia and may change as June approaches. Additional presentations, performances, and events will be announced here
7 June, 18:30
Opening — One Gallery
Official opening of the 20th anniversary edition.
7–15 June
ONE GALLERY
Performances and installations with participation of Feministas Futuristicas and international artists including:
Gaby Bila-Guenther AKA Lady Gaby,
Anna Bacheva & Trendafila Trendafilova,
Laurent Faulon,
Charlotte Eta Mumm,
Corinne Fhima,
Darina Alster,
Juha van Ingen,
Lisa Hinterreithner,
Viviana Druga,
Simon Pfeiffer,
Sound by YvesO and Mr. Smiff
10 June 18:30 at One Gallery - Presentation: Revitalizing Spaces Through Artist Residencies: Building Long-Term Connections Between Artists, Institutions, and Communities
By Mia Harris, Senior Producer: Residency Programs, V&A, UK
Varous pop-up events at WATER TOWER 11 – 17 June
11 June, 18:30- performance YvesO &Gaby Billa Gunther – AKA Lady Gaby at WATER TOWER
Video installation by Charlotte Eta Mumm
17 June 2026, 19:30h*
*Dream is Destiny*
//Chapter two: Embodiment//
Performance and installation
Artists: Mia Momchilova & Milena Stanojevic
Concept: Milena Stanojevic
Performed by: Mia Momchilova, Milena Stanojevic, and a creative collective of artists and other eccentrics who collaborate in the field of performance art.
19 June
WATER TOWER
“Two Voices – One Tower”
Performance by Dessy Messy & Elma Moves
with additional performance by Rita Winde.
22 June
WATER TOWER
First exhibition inside the Water Tower in Lozenets featuring:
Johanna Herr,
Ana Vujic,
John McGarithy
Charlotte Eta Mumm,
Laurent Faulon,
Delphine Reist
Mariana Tantcheva
Daphne de Sonneville
Performances by:
Sandra Zanetti
Special screening programme:
“Crooked Cinema” alt-kino selection curated by Tom Kirk.
Music by Stoyo a fine selection of jazzdance, boogie, fusion, afro, caribbean and organic grooves.
23–30 June
FIGURA ART SPACE
Opening on 23 June 18:30 with works and interventions by:
Anthi Simeonidou THE GRASS IS ONLY GREENER ON THE OTHER SIDE Nikola Vulchev “Children’s Shirt” Carina Dobreva ‘Exhaustion’ Oli Gots “mono no aware / memories of beauty” Yiwen Zhang Unfixed Forms Chris Perl “Transformation Maps” Petja Ivanova Paprika Nails Longing Joanna Ivanova
VIDEO WORKS FIGURA Khadija Zammouli Cimetière Marin Driton Hajredini Sin Javier Fabregas Late Third World Chronicles (trilogy short films) Becca-Willow Moss Call Aqua Razvan Anton Pixelity #FFFF00 Heart of Palms Petar Denchev Bloodwork
26–30 June
SAMCA
opening 26 June, 18:30
Installations by:
Jan Doms,
Mariusz Sołtysik,
Lars Asling
Performance by Haruka Tomatsu
More tba
25 June
TOPLOCENTRALA FORUM
“WTAF 20 FORUM: Safety, Moral Alignment, and the Fragility of Freedom”
Moderated by Rumena Kalcheva
“Funding for the Unfundable” with Desislava Pancheva and Katerina Kyprioti Katerina Gourgioti from Klug Greece, Mariko Hori
15:00–19:00
Gallery KUB — Toplocentrala
27 June
WATER TOWER — GRAND ANNIVERSARY OPENING/CLOSING EVENT
Concert 18:00 – Kliment (Zenon, Electrik Dream) – Live 19:30: – Big Bandа – concert 21:00 – Cinnamint (Artmospheric) – dj set 22:00 – Surbahar (Orphic Beats, Chill Om Rec) – Live 23:00 End
and performances and installations by:
Haruka Tomatsu,
Mariko Hori,
Qing Cai,
Christiane Peschek,
Lorraine Kordecki,
Tomasz Matuszak.
Delphine Reist,
Lars Asling,
Ola Kozioł
Aleksandra Chciuk,
*The exhibition in the Water tower will continue till 30th of june
And more to tbc
The project is realized with the financial support of Sofia Municipality — Cultural Calendar Programme, Pro Helvetia, Austrian Cultural Forum, Polish Institute Sofia and Sofia Mobility Programme.
@water_tower_art_fest
WTAF 20: Safety, Moral Alignment, and the Fragility of Freedom
The 20th Anniversary of Water Tower Art Fest (WTAF) is conceived as a moment of reflection, continuation, and ethical recalibration. It marks two decades of sustained artistic practice in spaces that exist outside dominant cultural, economic, and institutional frameworks — places often perceived as obsolete, risky, abandoned, or unstable.
Since its foundation in 2006, WTAF has functioned as a platform for free artistic expression precisely where freedom is least expected: in industrial ruins, disused infrastructure, peripheral urban zones, and rural contexts. These sites are not neutral backdrops but active agents — spaces suspended between “no longer” and “not yet”, between past function and uncertain future.
The Water Tower itself embodies this condition. It stands not only as architecture, but as metaphor: a structure exposed to shifting intentions, reinterpretations, claims, and narratives. Its fragility mirrors the fragility of artistic freedom within unstable moral and institutional climates.
The anniversary programme builds on this legacy by asking two intertwined questions:
What kind of artistic courage is still possible in an era governed by regulation, risk avoidance, and instrumentalisation?
And how do we remain aligned with our moral compass while navigating systems that subtly reward its misalignment?
An Invitation to Contribute to a Shared Future
(Closed Curatorial Call – Selected Artists & Alumni)
Sofia | June 2026 – ongoing
Water Tower Art Fest (WTAF) marks its 20th anniversary not as a celebration of endurance alone, but as a moment of collective reckoning and projection. This invitation is extended to a selected circle of artists, curators, and cultural practitioners—many of whom have shaped the festival over the years, and others whose practices resonate deeply with its ethos—to contribute intellectually and conceptually to this milestone.
This is not an open call, nor a request for finished artworks. It is an invitation to think with us, to write, reflect, speculate, and position yourselves alongside a community that has grown across decades, geographies, and contexts of instability.
Why This Invitation, Now
We are living through a time marked by accelerating political polarisation, ecological collapse, economic extraction, and the re-emergence of new empires built on fragile foundations: greed disguised as growth, nationalism masked as identity, hedonism sold as freedom, and power sustained through the erosion of empathy.
The systems that shape our present are increasingly incapable of imagining a livable future. Art, too, is under pressure—instrumentalised, neutralised, regulated, or absorbed into market logic. Independent spaces disappear, residencies are forced to justify themselves through productivity metrics, and artistic risk is reframed as institutional liability.
Yet it is precisely in such times that art must refuse immediacy, refuse compliance with the here-and-now, and insist on longer temporalities, deeper solidarities, and alternative value systems.
Water Tower Art Fest has always existed slightly out of time—working in abandoned infrastructures, peripheral geographies, and spaces between past function and future possibility. After 20 years, we recognise this position not as marginal, but as necessary.
A Community Across Time
Since 2006, WTAF has functioned as a living, evolving ecosystem rather than a fixed institution. Its community is not defined by nationality, discipline, or style, but by a shared commitment to:
- working with place as an active agent, not a backdrop
- engaging ethically with communities and local realities
- embracing uncertainty, vulnerability, and risk as artistic values
- resisting extractive, short-term cultural models
- and sustaining long-term relationships beyond single projects
This invitation acknowledges your role—past, present, or potential—within this ecosystem. It asks: what does it mean to belong to an artistic community over time, especially when the world around us grows increasingly fragmented?
What We Are Inviting You to Contribute
We invite you to contribute a textual or conceptual position that responds to the following shared horizon:
How can artistic communities imagine and work toward futures that are politically conscious, economically just, ecologically sustainable, and socially empathetic—beyond the dominant systems we currently inhabit?
Your contribution may take the form of:
- a short essay or manifesto
- a speculative or poetic text
- a critical reflection grounded in your practice
- a proposal for alternative social, ecological, or cultural strategies
- a collective or dialogical text developed with others
- a reflection on failure, exhaustion, refusal, or withdrawal as political acts
We are not seeking consensus. We are seeking clarity of position, generosity of thought, and the courage to articulate directions that may feel distant from the present moment—but necessary for survival.
Shared Values, Not Shared Answers
This invitation is grounded in a set of values that have shaped WTAF across two decades:
- Gift economy over extraction
- Shared resources over accumulation
- Care over competition
- Ecological interdependence over human exceptionalism
- Long-term cultural processes over short-term visibility
We recognise that these values are increasingly at odds with dominant political and economic narratives. That is precisely why we insist on them—not as ideology, but as practice.
Your contribution may affirm, challenge, complicate, or reframe these values. What matters is that it participates in a collective effort to articulate direction, rather than merely diagnose collapse.
From Forum to Archive to Future
Selected contributions will become part of:
- the WTAF 20th Anniversary Symposium & Forum (June 2026, Sofia), where texts and positions may be read, discussed, or activated through conversation;
- and the 20-Year Anniversary Publication, conceived not as a retrospective catalogue, but as a future-facing archive—a document of shared thinking in a time of profound uncertainty.
This publication will stand as a record of how an international artistic community chose to speak, imagine, and take responsibility at a historical turning point.
A Continuing Commitment
This invitation should be understood as part of an ongoing relationship, not a one-time gesture. Water Tower Art Fest remains committed to slow cultural work, long-term collaboration, and sustained dialogue across borders and differences.
By contributing, you are not endorsing a fixed programme or institution. You are participating in a collective attempt to remain human, imaginative, and responsible within systems that increasingly discourage all three.
In Closing
We believe that art still matters—not because it entertains, decorates, or distracts, but because it can hold complexity, nurture empathy, and imagine futures where other systems of living are possible.
After 20 years, Water Tower Art Fest continues to ask:
- What is worth sustaining?
- What must be transformed?
- And how do we do this together, without illusion—but also without surrender?
We invite you to think with us.
—
Water Tower Art Fest (WTAF)
20th Anniversary Programme
Association IME | Sofia
June 2026 – ongoing
We must not follow doctrines blindly or submit to false authority; we must lead by example and defend our principles.
Soon more info on places, people, art and things!
