The village of Dazhdovnitsa is situated on a forest hill only several kilometers away from the district town of Kardzhali (Southeast Bulgaria). The village hosts the Youth Center of KRUG (Circle) Art Movement – an association for cultural policies in the field of contemporary art. It was founded in Kardzhali eighteen years ago. Its exhibition hall situated in the city center accentuates on modern art. The Art-House is also a member of the European Cultural Youth Houses network. Over 920 sculptors, artists, photographers, translators, directors and researchers have visited the art house in the past twelve years. The longevity of the art house is due to the long-term vision and dedication of its organizers. Radost Nikolaeva is a co-founder and artistic director of the project. How her art house managed to gather artists from all parts of the globe? Here is what Radost told Radio Bulgaria herself:

“In the beginning we thought that we would not be able to cope with that experiment. We were dealing with open-air art and wanted to find an abandoned building in the Eastern Rhodopes and wrap it with paintings. We were expecting forty young artists from the Netherlands, Italy and Greece and wanted to hold an open-air event without any audience-just us and the sky above us. It took us long time to explain to the former municipal council what we were looking for. There were many desolated municipal buildings and schools, mainly in depopulated villages of the so-called Big Excursion (when ethnic Turks were forcibly deported from Bulgaria in the 1980’s). We were invited by many villages to settle in some of their buildings, but we had to receive a permit from the municipality first. One day we managed to persuade the former mayor of Dazhdovnitsa and got that permit quite easy.”

The building of the former madrasa (a Muslim religious school) hosted the art project thanks to the support of the Kardzhali Municipality and the Swiss Cultural Program in Bulgaria. The madrasa is situated in the premises of the village mosque where in the 1950’s the village primary school was established. The centennial building was renovated and refurbished by volunteers in 2005 when it started to welcome its first guests.

The organizers of the project aim at establishing close contacts between guests and the local people. This link is shown in the art process itself. Visitors can also see in the art house collections of old photo albums of Turkish families, fabrics and house appliances such as a big wooden pot and a hammer. People once used that appliance in culinary to make the traditional keskek – a religious meal made of wheat and chicken meat.

Each year the art movement names competition themes which attract artists from all parts of the globe. Zaksie Ismail Aliosman and Galina Dimova are responsible for the cultural expeditions, the documentation and the maintenance of the art house. Galina takes care of the guests and connects them with the local citizens. Galina Dimova is an artist herself. We asked her how that project developed over the years:

“The people who visit that place must sink into the local atmosphere and live the life of the village, regardless of how great those artists are. A French group from Bordeaux and Paris did that first. They made an exhibition and managed to touch the souls of the local people. They sank into the local atmosphere for twelve whole days and did not use any translators during their stay. They made art installations which depicted the life of the people from the village of Dazhdovnitsa in a perfectly aesthetic manner, regardless of the poverty they live in. I found out for the first time what French aesthetics means and how those people respect others. The group gave us a collection of stories and photographs.”

Bulgarian students who study architecture in Sofia have fulfilled projects aimed at renovating the houses in Dazhdovnitsa. Those photos are not merely beautiful. They are technical projects with completed plans, Galya went on to say.

Professor Gyöngy Laky from San Francisco, together with a team from Hungary and Japan, has fulfilled a three-dimension arrow-shaped house as an imaginary copy of the art house. The people from Dazhdovnitsa saw how foreign artists made an art installation with great efforts, working eight hours a day. That work of art was documented in the American Craft magazine.

Many guests fall in love with that place and return there again and again. Celebrated Bulgarian photographer Zafer Galibov, painter Mario Lyshevksi from Berlin and landscape photographer Vladimir Donkov are among those people.

Visitors can walk from the village of Dazhdovnitsa to the nearby beautiful rock niches, which were chiseled out by human hand in Antiquity. Those rocks were once used by the Thracians as sanctuaries. Utrobata Cave is also situated in close proximity to the village of Dazhdovnitsa. There are also numerous eco pathways connecting different parts of the Eastern Rhodopes. Visitors should not miss the opportunity to visit the Slipper Festival, held in the first Saturday of September at the initiative of the KRUG Art Movement.

English version: Kostadin Atanasov

Photos: Miladina Monova