Your Title: What Product Have You Tried & Tested?

Nonument 2.0 - in the zone of contradictory desires

Radio ballet and exhibition at the Park-monument of the Bulgarian-Soviet friendship in Varna

The artist Stefan A. Shterev and the German art collective LIGNA are once again issuing a creative challenge related to the so-called NON-monuments (or nonuments) in our country - after the IKAR award-winning Nonument 1.0 on Buzludzha Peak, this time they invite the public to the Park-monument of the Bulgarian-Soviet Friendship in Varna, where on 15 October they will premiere the radio-object Nonument 2.0*.

In the second project of the Nonument trilogy, which the artists are presenting, the theme of monuments that have lost their significance over time, that have turned from places of memory and reverence into places of worship for ideological myths and convenient historical narratives, is again the leading one. So-called NON-monuments (nonuments) are ideologically charged, surrounded by both hatred and nostalgia, attitudes of revisionism and destruction, and the desire to preserve, conserve and rethink their function in the present. Can a theatrical intervention (performance) demythologize a NON-monument (nonument)? Can it make a contemporary interpretation out of it so that we change the imposed perceptions of the past, experience the same emotional and critical sense of the present, and provide a meaningful future without lies?

The Symbol of Concreted Friendship provokes the artists to dig into the archives, meet with eyewitnesses, read numerous materials and articles, and premiere their latest work to a Varna audience on 15 October 2022 in the space in front of the monument. Admission to the interactive performance is free, and those wishing to participate need to bring smartphone devices and headphones.

Alongside the archival data and cultural references gathered as a basis for the dramaturgy, an exhibition will be presented to provide context and preparation for the performance-radio outfit itself. The accompanying exhibition "The Great Monument of the Little Past", presented by curator Ralitsa Gerasimova, will show the cultural dimensions of the monument as seen by contemporary artists over the past 30 years. It is a combination of archival historical research conducted by Margarita Dorovska and the Cosmodrome Project, as well as contemporary artistic interpretations of the monument. The exhibit opens October 8 at 6:30 p.m. in a pop-up space on the St. Sofroni Vrachanski 24, in the Talyana district, Varna.

For the realization of the performance Nonument 2.0, the German media collective LIGNA arrives in Bulgaria, working on the creation of the radio ballet together with the artist Stefan A. Shterev and composer Emilian Gatsov. This will be their next joint project.

*Honument 2.0 is a radio ballet in the form of a audioplay. Guided by a specially recorded audio-file, which each viewer listens to independently with headphones, participants experience the architecture, witness scenes from the history of the (UN)monument and are invited to join in the performance of ordinary, everyday gestures or large-scale group choreographies.

Since 2002, the German company LIGNA - Ole Frahm, Michael Huhners and Torsten Mikkelsen - has been developing so-called "temporary situations" and introducing the concept of "radio ballet", which provoke the audience to act as a collective, creating seemingly spontaneous situations in mostly public spaces such as train stations or shopping malls. LIGNA works very actively with Bulgarian artists Stefan A. Shterev and Emilian Gatsov, thanks to whom this specific theatrical aesthetic has been transferred to Bulgarian stage practice. So far, they have worked together on the radio ballets "Secret Radio" at Sofia's Bulgaria Mall, "Intoxication and Anger - Studies on Authoritarian Character", which opened the theatre season at the Künstelrhaus Mousonturm, Frankfurt in 2017 and was presented at more than ten international festivals, as well as "Non-performative Approach to Buzludzha" in 2019, which received the national ICAR award in the category "Contemporary Dance and Performance" in 2020.

The project team would like to express its gratitude to the Ministry of Culture, the National Culture Fund, Goethe-Institut Bulgaria, Life long burning project, Creative Europe Programme of the European Union, the concessionaire of Varna Airport and Burgas Airport - Fraport Twin Star and the Brain Story Project Foundation for their support, as well as to the Drama and Puppet Theatre "Vasil Drumev".