Approaches to conservation and dissemination of contemporary monumental facade art in Bulgaria
The Balkan Heritage Foundation will realize the project “New Heritage: approaches to conservation and dissemination of contemporary monumental facade art in Bulgaria” as part of the program “Recovery and development of private culture organizations” of the National Fund for Culture (NFC, Bulgaria) for the period November 2022 – November 2023.
Project partners
Municipality of Veliko Tarnovo, Municipality of Plovdiv, Municipality of Burgas, Sofia Municipality and Regional History Museum – Sofia. The main focus of the project is the preservation and management of contemporary monumental facade art (MFA) created in the last 70 years.
The project partners are united in their cause for creating a platform for research and sharing of knowledge and experience and for encouraging public debate on a topic that lacks public consensus or a unified state policy. It is their goal to offer possible solutions for public policies for the preservation and dissemination of monumental facade art in Bulgaria.
In a sense, the project is a pioneer in Bulgaria because it raises for the first time in our recent history the subject of MFA in its full scope including its significance and preservation and all concerned parties will be invited to participate. The project team is interdisciplinary and includes, art historians, conservators, lawyers and specialists in cultural heritage preservation and cultural policy-making, some of them from the local authorities.
The management, coordination, administration and evaluation of the project will be carried out by the BHF team with the support of both foreign and local specialists.
Target groups and audience:
- Local authorities
- Bulgarian Ministry of Culture
- Owners of buildings with MFA
- Cultural heritage specialists and institutions
- Citizens of Sofia, Plovdiv, Burgas and Veliko Tarnovo
- Local and international audiences interested in cultural heritage
Key activities in the project:
Choosing and documenting of 80 examples of monumental facade art created after 1950 in Sofia, Plovdiv, Burgas and Veliko Tarnovo.
The project envisions the documentation of 65 new works of monumental art which along with the already existing 15 files (created during projects of the Balkan Heritage Foundation in Sofia and Plovdiv). The documentation of the selected works includes research, photographic documentation and condition assessment by an interdisciplinary team of specialists: art historians, conservators, and a photographer. Their work will be supported by the local authorities and communities, as well as legally. The goal is to create files containing the most important information about the sites: type, statute, importance, size and specifics as well as location and a preliminary assessment of the current condition of the 80 selected works of MFA. The monitoring of the current condition of the 80 sites in Sofia, Plovdiv, Burgas and Veliko Tarnovo will be carried out by an international team of experts. The results will aid the partnering municipalities to plan and undertake the necessary measures for the conservation of the sites. The project also envisions locating and interviewing the artists which created the selected works or their surviving heirs.
The newly acquired information as well as the already existing one in the municipality files and those of the National Institute of Immovable Cultural Heritage (NIICH) about the artworks included in the project will be organized into an archive. This archive will be used for creating recommendations and cultural policies and to aid the local authorities in the preservation of the sites. The archive will become accessible to the project partners after the project’s completion.
Galleries
Burgas
Veliko Tarnovo
Plovdiv
Sofia
