PROGRAM OF WTAF 2013
19 – 23 June
TEMPORARY PROTECTED SPACES
Organized by NGO IME and friends
For the 7 time we invite you to The festival for contemporary arts and culture Water tower art fest from 19th to 23rd of June in Sofia in few locations around town
We are an Artist-run initiative!
Attending all events is free.
Since 2006 the Water Tower Art Fest (WTAF) has been promoting a vivid demonstration of the richness and diversity of the cultural life in Sofia, and at the same time points to important but often neglected urban problems such as the decay of abandoned city spaces of national importance. WTAF provides not just an agenda for the solution of such problems, but also the means for it – through the artistic creativity and cooperation established between the participating artists and the audience the festival reveals the transformative power of art.
The main idea behind Sofia’s candidacy for a European Capital of Culture for 2019, the concept of “Sharing Sofia”, is reflected by the mission of WTAF – to bring art out in the open, to liberate it from the conventional two-dimensional space of galleries and museums limited by finite walls and opening times, and provide it with the freedom and infinite opportunities of nature combined with the picturesque city landscape. By so doing, the organizers of the festival successfully promote the all-inclusiveness of art and its ability to transcend borders and maintain respect, understanding and appreciation of diversity. Overcoming the spatial borders of conventional art spaces was just the first step WTAF has made on the way to the full transformation of art into a socially-engaged ambience, capable of bringing real change to the surrounding community.
By opening up its artistic territory to a wide variety of artists of different nationalities, religions, social background and gender, the festival creates a welcoming atmosphere in which everyone feels not just secure but also empowered to transform their own life as well as the life of the city of Sofia. By combining the historical significance and multicultural heritage of the Water Tower in Lozenets with the inventiveness and originality of modern art, WTAF manages to subvert one more category of social borders – the divide between past and future – by demonstrating the intrinsic need of ascribing to the two, ostensibly opposite, temporal trajectories the common origin of social change.
And last but not least we invite you to our Temporary protected spaces:
Protected – because we need to feel this way, by coming together and expressing ourselves freely.
Protected from whom? Protected from the raging forces of ego based battles within the society, from the mass illiteracy leading to intolerant and rude attitude towards matters of the heart.
Protected by whom? By the group of artists expressing their motivation to come together and create, by the notion itself of making a festival for the arts and not a LTD company for any kind of business binding to the forces of capitalism.
Why spaces? Because we have the time, and are in need of a space.
19 June from 18:30 to 22:30 – official opening
Water tower in Lozenets
Working hours for the period 19 – 23 of June are 14:00 – 19:00
Address: map
Sofia, Lozenets, the corner of Galichitsa Str. and Sv. Tedosiy Tarnovski Str.
Transport:
to metrostation James Bourchier, then walk
tram line Nr. 10 to Energoproekt station
Music – official welcome:
Munsee & Dichkata – concert live in the garden of the tower
Artists:
Aleksandra Rasulic (Serbia) – Temporarily Protected From Dirt; installation
Claire Halpin (Ireland) – Protest Drawings Traced Transferred; drawings
The starting point of this artwork comes from media images the artist collected of the Shell to Sea Protests in Rossport, County Mayo on the remote west coast of Ireland. “I was struck by the drama and anger encapsulated in the struggling protesters and the images to me were like figures from Caravaggio paintings.”
Johannah Herr (USA) – Patterns on wall
John O’Hare (UK) – Protest in Abstract; interactive installation
Protest in Abstract is an interactive installation of materials and objects associated with mass demonstrations – political pamphlets, placards and banners – painted in bold colours and devoid of particular messages or signs. In presenting organised protest as an aesthetic visual event of which the juxtaposition of complimentary and conflicting colour is the central motif, it queries the collective authorship, mutation and manipulation of iconographies of resistance.
Jonathan Johnson (USA) – Sofia-Midwest Connection
Hitomi Kammai (Japan) – Girl; video installation
Herve Constant (UK) – The Dream; sound installation
Paweł Kowzan (Poland) – Untitled, 2013; permanent sound installation
Thomas C. Chung (Australia) – Find Me If You Can…; installation
Yolanda Adrover (Spain) – Forgive me for breathing; video
Yujin Lee (Korea) – 51 Smiling Buddhas; drawings
Vesela Mihaylova and Tiago Martins (Portugal) – TRIPO; sound installation
Yohann Walter (Denmark) – Aegis; video and sound installation
Aegis is a video and sound work made in four countries and in no less than twenty different locations. Through mountains, forests, Springs and seas, places of worship where remain our origins, Aegis explores symbolic and ritualistic approaches, where communion with our environment are revealed through sounds and gestures, sensitive and mystical vocabulary which propose the viewer a journey through a world that was, one day, protected against men.
Performances:
19 June, 21:00
Laura Cristin (Italy) – Sirena Bulgara; performance
A-live S(he)ren in Sofia: Along almost a decennial of wanderings in performing arts, while discovering/developing the identity of Sheren, I have often stepped across the (mari)TIME of my birthday: 13th June.The WTAF further EAST around the summer solstice seems another predestined stage on this path, also for the Water Tower with its clock-like (dodecagonal) plant. Thinking, imagining, feeling about the mythology of Sheren is a daily (art) practice intermeshed with the mundane. It’s a constant attitude always ready to take (physical) shapes/appearances in case of fortunate conditions. When these occur the ephemeral magically materializes in the heARTs of many, far beyond a ‘private garden’. Space—Nature and human beings included—is important, as the Tempo. Music provides many suggestions for e-motionS and ‘moti dell’anima’ to be played with the contingency. Polyethylene veils, stick-of-rain, aquatic accessories help, sometime.
Best things are un-expected.
As a real S(he)ren turning up in Bulgaria
from the Mediterranean Sea
A living examplar along the lineage
Of the fossil mermaid of Sozopol
Found in the Net of 16th July 2012
This time in the WaterTowerArt realm
On the 7th note
19 June, 21:45 – 22:30
Penta Pulse (Bulgaria) – Audio-Visual Performance
If you ask us directly what PentaPuls means, we can’t give only one answer. The idea of the audiovisual installation comes from the desire to make connection between the nature, the human begging and the digital revolution, that changed the course of our development. The shapes from which the screen is made are sort of a game. And exactly the game is the basic thing that rules our lives. The preservation of these forms, actually of all subjects that surround us, can also be called a game…made out of paper the main ingredient that we use is the pentagon( one of the accurate shapes that the nature gives us, one of the shapes that is directly connected with the sacral geometry, with the Fibonacci spiral). The featured form includes the elements of the earth, air (the sky), follows the flowing shapes of the water( the waves) and represents the sharpness of the fire. With the help of the vision and the sound we will show one of the most sacral moments in the life of humans, we will make connection with the nature and of course we will make a reverence to her power, we will fall in love and smile. “PentaPulse” has not the goal to change or guide us, but to open our eyes for the moment, when the digital and the natural settle down in full harmony.
20 June (Thursday) from 18:30 to 22:30 – official opening
SAMCA – Sofia Arsenal – Museum of Contemporary Art
Working hours for the period 20 June – 7 July are 10:00 – 18:00
Address: map
2 Cherni Vrah Blvd.
Transport:
By foot: from Hostel Lavele
By metro: Take the underground from Serdica metrostation and get off at European Union station. The venue is a walking distance away.
By bus: bus Nr. 94 (get off at Hemus hotel)
Artists:
Andy Broady (UK) – Still; photographs; with special program at the Museum of Socialist Art
Anna Simeonoff (Bulgaria) – Idioms-Anatomists; prints
Baron Studio (Bulgaria, Turkey) – Easy Star, All Stars; installation
Cathrine Constanse Gjelsnes, Frode Sten Jacobsen, Ingebjørg Torgersen & Trond Arne Vangen (The Norwegian bunch) – Leave it as you Found it; installation
David Borawski (USA) – Cage
Daria Baiocchi (Italy) – Sospeso; sound installation
Frode S. Jacobsen (Norway) – Autumn and fire; video installation
John O’Hare (UK) – Protest in Abstract
Jonathan Johnson (USA) – Sofia-Midwest Connection
Jos Bregman (The Netherlands) – Pop Art House
Katya Stoycheva (Bulgaria) – The White Book of temporary protected spaces; installation
Nataliya Petkova (Bulgaria) – La mariée mise à nu par le binaire, même (The Bride Stripped Bare by the Binary, itself); installation
Paco Simón (Spain) – Give me back my Landscape; installation
Petra Stenvall (Sweden) – Black and Blue; photography
Radomir Dankov (Bulgaria) – Talk to Nia; interactive installation
Susken Rosenthal (Germany) – Untitled; installation
Sibylle Hofter (Germany) – Balkan series; photo projection
Teodor Liho (Bulgaria) – Up in smoke; art action
Tomasz Matuszak (Poland) – All the World; photo and video
Takako Yamaguchi (Japan) – Curtain; installation
Thomas C. Chung (Australia) – Find Me If You Can…; installation
Verginiya Yancheva (Bulgaria) – Turns; portaits
Viktoriya Georgieva (Bulgaria) – Sleda-sledya, Trace-tracking
Wang Haiyuan (China) – Watch out; photography
Yuri Miyauchi (Japan) – Wire Hole; site specific installation
Performances:
20 June, 19:30 – 21:00
Radina Stoimenova (Bulgaria) – Do you want to walk with me?
A performance exploring the possibilities of getting closer, of creating a fragile and protected space within a public one. You are invited to take a walk. The participant is invited to stroll along the streets of an imaginary city’s map. At first he becomes the listener of a particular text (different for each person), then if willing, he participates in it. The stroll gradually turns into a conversation.The texts people hear are different, mysterious, questioning or simply beautiful. For the time of the walk the artist reveals a part of his ownself, a secret he holds… Questions, discussion, bewilderment, amazement are raised.
20 June, 21:00 – 22:00
Teodor Liho (Bulgaria) – Up In Smoke; art action
Up In Smoke
Smoke
….as a hero/image/multilayer symbol:
….as thick, heavy smoke clews
….as a thin flow of white signal smoke
….as a stifling cloud
Smoke, depending on the context is charged with multilayer messages: it could
be a signal, means for communication or the opposite a curtain, a diffusion, a
sphumato….. a mystifier, an obstacle or an arena for images…..
One uses smoke to invent sayings for blessing, expulsion of evil forces, etc.
One can make preservation of ham with smoke or the fish of Christ…..
20 June (Thursday) from 10:00 to 18:00 – Seminar / workshop at the Amercian Center
Tea brake: 12:00 – 13:00
Address: map
4A Slaveykov Sq.
Transport:
Trams Nr. 10, 12, 18 (schedule) to Slaveykov Sq. station
Foundation In Search Of – Do-It-Yourself. Cultural Activism; educational-creative workshop (more about the seminar at the end of the program)
21 June from 10:00 to 18:00 – Seminar / workshop at the SAMCA (continuation)
Tea brake: 12:00 – 13:00
Address: map
2 Cherni Vrah Blvd.
Transport:
By foot: from Hostel Lavele
By metro: Take the underground from Serdica metrostation and get off at European Union station. The venue is a walking distance away.
By bus: bus Nr. 94 (get off at Hemus hotel)
Foundation In Search Of – Do-It-Yourself. Cultural Activism; educational-creative workshop (more about the seminar at the end of the program)
21 June (Saturday) 18:30 – 22:00
Opening of alternative venue – Serdika underground
Working hours for the period 21 June – 23 June are 14:00 – 19:00
Address: map
16 Maria Luisa blvd. – entrance next to the Roca Showroom.
Transport
Metro: Serdica Metro Station, walking to 16 Maria Luisa blvd.; trams № 20, 22 or 23 to station Central Bath
Artist:
Antonio Keserdzhiev (Bulgaria) – Translations; graphic video installation
Aurore Dal Mas (Belgium) – Fire; sound installation
Blanca Alonso (Spain) – The Periplus of a Line; installation performance
Shahar Marcus (Israel) – Freeze, Leap of Faith, Still Burning; 3 video films
Ivaylo Hristov (Bulgaria) – Objects of the absence; installation
Maria Krawczynska, Libor Novotný, Josef Daněk, Jana Zhořová – Studio of drawing, Ostrava, (Czech Republic) – GPS Studio; installation
Mary Adam (Bulgaria) – PROVIDES24HPROTECTION; video performance
Mimmo Roselli (Italy) – Un Km di linee di più / A km of lines maybe more; video
Paul Wiersbinski (Germany) – Robo Cats in Titan City; video installation
Nevena Germanova, Veronika Dimitrova, Tsvetelina Slavcheva and Tsvetelina Panova (Bulgaria) – Fading Sofia; tales on a tape
Witek Ziemiszewszki and Maciej Ożóg (Poland) – Antarctic Treaty; interactive audio-visual installation
Performances:
YanaHa (Bulgaria) – reading passages of a book; performance
21 June (Friday), 21:00
Lavele Hostel
Adress:
Lavele str. 14
Slavoslav Zemenski (Bulgaria) – The Shadow of a New Man; installation at the yard of Lavele hostel
22 June from 10:00 to 18:00 – Seminar at the SAMCA (final day)
Tea brake: 12:00 – 13:00
Address: map
2 Cherni Vrah Blvd.
Transport:
By foot: from Hostel Lavele
By metro: Take the underground from Serdica metrostation and get off at European Union station. The venue is a walking distance away.
By bus: bus Nr. 94 (get off at Hemus hotel)
Foundation In Search Of – Do-It-Yourself. Cultural Activism; educational-creative workshop (more about the seminar at the end of the program)
22 June (Saturday) – Workshops at the garden of the water tower
11:00 – 17:00
Anguelina Ranguelova (Bulgaria) – What do you need?
15:00 – 17:00
Lilly Angelova (Bulgaria) – Upgrading Shakespeare
22 June
Hambara
Adress:
22 6-ti Septemvri Str.
Performance:
19:00
Biliana Voutchkova, violin (Bulgaria); Louise Wagner, choreographer/dancer, Dorothea Nold, visual artist (Germany)
Presentational program:
21:00 – 22:30
Jos Bregman (The Netherlands) – Pop Art House Osenovlag;
“This neigbour event is a tribute to Bulgaria by the Dutch artist Jos Bregman.”
With his project Bregman does research how he can be a European neighbour, even when he is – as a resident of the Netherlands – away more often than not. Bregman invites you to be a part-time neighbour, even if it is only for half an hour, upon visiting PAHO. After the performance at WTAF you could end up reserving an Entry Ticket.
Bregman commutes during the festival to and from POHA, you can accompany him.
“Bulgaria offers Bregman what the Netherlands lack: Mountains and Nature. Bregman enjoys this at an Osenovlag House, 30 km north of Sofia, as the bird flies. The house belonged to a Priest, and the Bulgarian word for Priest is ‘Pop’. For a Europe of Neighbours, not of Brussels. GPS for your navigation or copy and paste in maps.google.com: 42.38199, 26.14516.”
Neno Belchev (Bulgaria) – author
Neno Belchev was born in 1971 in Varna, Bulgaria. Lives and works in Varna. He graduated in Mural Painting from the National Academy of Art in Sofia, Bulgaria. Works in the fields of video art, performance, installation, sculpture, new media as well as independent curator. He is one of the founders of the Videoholica International Video Art Festival in Varna, Bulgaria.
He has participated in a wide range of solo and group, national and international exhibitions. He has been awarded artist in residence grants (AIR) in Russia, China, Japan and Portugal and awards from international video and film festivals in Russia, the Netherland and Austria.
23 June (Sunday) from 13:00 to 20:00
One day action at the Royal train station in Kazichene
Address: map
Kazichene, Sofia
Transport:
By bus: Nr. 8, 14 (schedules)
Route taxi Nr. 35 (stops at the tunnel of the National Palace of Culture)
By taxi: approximately 20 BGN from the city centre
By car: Directions to Cenral Train Station, Sofia
23 June, 11:00
Kaloyan Ivanov (Bulgaria) – performance at train station Sofia, before leaving to Kazichene
Artists:
Jan Doms © & Olga Doreva – LEF (The Netherlands, Bulgaria) – Royal Train Station Kazichene; site-specific glass installation and sound collage
Johannah Herr (USA) – Patterns on Wall
Rumen Dimitrov (Bulgaria) – The Wall; installation
Radomir Dankov (Bulgaria) – Without Rails; installation with locomotive
Music concert – TBC
BBQ
End!
***
Seminar:
20 – 22 June, from 10:00 to 18:00
Tea brake: 12:00 – 13:00
Foundation In Search Of – Do-It-Yourself. Cultural Activism; educational-creative workshop
Do-It-Yourself. Cultural Activism; educational-creative workshop
Organized by NGO IME, lead by a Polish organization Foundation In Search Of… with the participation of The Bulgarian Center for Non-For-Profit Law (BCNL).
The workshop is aimed to everyone interested in any form of cultural activism as well as people already working in an organization and willing to increase their knowledge and capacities.
Throughout the workshop we’ll present different ways of operating as a cultural activist, introduce the basic tools of cultural management and excercise the aspects of organizing a cultural project.
Through cultural activism you can make changes in the public space, views and spread the positive outlook on life, politics and social reality. We’re going to show good practices on that matter in Bulgaria and Poland.
* The workshop is supported by Program Evropa, Polish Cultural Institute, National Fund of Culture
* The workshop will be in English
Registration at watertowerartfest@gmail.com
Guests from Poland:
Adam Klimczhak
Ewelina Chmielevska
Iza Robakowska
Józef Robakowski
Seminar program:
20 June (Thursday) from 10:00 to 18:00 – Seminar at the Amercian Center
Tea brake: 12:00 – 13:00
Address: map
4A Slaveykov Sq.
Transport:
Trams Nr. 10, 12, 18 (schedule) to Slaveykov Sq. station
21 – 22 June from 10:00 to 18:00 – Seminar at the SAMCA
Tea brake: 12:00 – 13:00
Address: map
4A Slaveykov Sq.
Transport:
Trams Nr. 10, 12, 18 (schedule) to Slaveykov Sq. station
PARTNERS AND SPONSORS:
Water Tower Art Fest endorses the candidacy of Sofia and Southwest Region for European Capital of Culture 2019
Sofia Municipality
SOFIA CANDIDATE FOR EUROPEAN CAPITAL OF CULTURE – 2019
Organizer:
NGO IME
Institutional Partners:
National Culture Fund
Polish Cultiral Institute
The Gaudenz B. Ruf Award
American Embassy
Old Sofia Municipal Enterprise with Historical Museum of Sofia
Program Europe
Partners:
Lavele Hostel
Fundacja In Search Of
Photopavilion
Coca Cola
Prisma lighting
Pro cinema
„Юролайтърз Плам България АД”
Застрахователен брокер „Балкан”
Квантсервиз
Olive’s
Кристиян-Нейко
Cellnet
Дакс – строителни и интериорни стъкла
НБУ
Media Partners:
programata.bg
Radio Bulgaria
Classic FM
Jazz FM
Zar.bg
Darik radio
*ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 2013
