‘So that people can be comfortable’ is an installation by artist Slavena Petkova, whose artistic practice often begins in conversations with people, communities or businesses, and then unfolds in site-specific installations that reflect both socio-cultural realities and shared spaces. The installation at Swimming Pool features text fragments spread across the space, drawn from public discussions held there, critical essays, or Petkova’s previous projects. Another visual layer is created by the Vandalized Art Series, featuring colorful silhouettes of public art—works by artists such as Valentin Starchev, Venelin Shurelov, Sevdalina Kochevska, Veronica Cekova, and Veselin Dimov—that have been destroyed or forcibly removed. For Petkova, the plexiglass forms reveal the fragmented history not only of these monuments, sculptures, and artworks but also of the periods they represent.
‘So that people can be comfortable’ is produced specifically for Swimming Pool as a visual and conceptual context for the public program Nine Elephants Forum – an extension of the micro festival Nine Elephants, a sister project of Swimming Pool focused on art in urban spaces, which premiered in the summer of 2024. The festival featured various projects across Sofia’s neighborhoods, including exhibitions, performances, temporary interventions, and documentary-visual studies. Nine Elephants Forum expands on these themes with a series of lectures, discussions and conversations that explore new ways of working in the city in the coming season.
Along with Slavena Petkova’s installation Swimming Pool is showing two visual studies that were created within Nine Elephants festival: “Beyond ‘Slavo-Bulgarian History’” by Martin Tomov and Maria Ilieva and ‘The Red Book of Sofia’ by Viktor Damov – both can be viewed online.
Slavena Petkova (based in Sofia) is a multidisciplinary artist who works with textiles, photography, text, archives and communities. In most of her projects, she draws attention to everyday phenomena and actions, which she connects to a broader political context.
