Lilia Topouzova's "The Neighbours" Chosen to Represent Bulgaria at the Venice Biennale

The ICCIT's Lilia Topouzova's multimedia installation and ethnographic artwork, The Neighbours, has been chosen to represent Bulgaria at The Venice Biennale in Venice, Italy this year.

The Neighbours is an interactive multimedia installation that brings to light the silenced and faded memories of survivors of political violence during the Communist era in Bulgaria. Created by Krasimira Butseva, Lilia Topouzova, and Julian Chehirian, the project is the result of 20 years of historical and artistic research. Vasil Vladimirov is the project curator in the context of Bulgaria’s official participation in the 60th Venice Biennale.

The installation partially recreates the survivors’ homes in which the meetings and conversations with them unfolded. Staged within these private spaces are fragments from oral history interviews conducted by the artists, field recordings and videos from two former camp sites—Lovech and Belene.

The Venice Biennale is an international cultural exhibition that has been hosted annually in Venice, Italy since 1895. You can learn more about the exhibition on the Bulgarian Pavilion website.