site.btaNew Art Installation Being Put Up at Former Site of Communist Leader's Tomb

An art installation designed to encourage people to think about the past and the future is being put up at the former site of the mausoleum of communist leader Georgi Dimitrov in downtown Sofia, City Hall said on Monday. The place will become a venue for thematic events during the whole 12-month period that the temporary structure remains there.

The initiative is part of the local government's Outdoors Programme, which is aimed to fill what many people see as a blank spot in the city centre left after the mausoleum was demolished a quarter of a century ago, said Sofia Deputy Mayor for Culture Yana Genova.

The installation which is being erected was designed by artist Krasimir Terziev, who teaches cultural anthropology at Sofia University. It will consist of three-dimensional shining letters within a circle 12.5 m in diameter. The letters will read, in Bulgarian, "Between the Past that Will Be, and the Future that Was". Terziev's idea is to create a space where people can escape from the dullness of everyday life and spend time reflecting. "Visitors may feel encouraged to think about the past, unresolved problems and bitter traumas, and also try to work out a vision for the future," Genova said.

The text alludes both to the history of the place and the present moment of our being. Terziev says he wants his work to attract people and make them relate to it, rather than create a distance between the viewer and the viewed.

"Between the Past..." was selected in 2022 during the second edition of the Outdoors Programme. It was preferred over eight other submissions intended to replace an earlier temporary structure called "One Man". The 13-member selection committee comprised experts from the Sofia City Art Gallery, the National Art Academy, the Ministry of Culture, the Council on Spatial Development, Urban Design and Advertising, and independent external experts, City Hall said. The project was also approved by the Municipal Council after consultation with cultural figures and members of the general public.

Terziev's installation is to be unveiled in early May and to remain as a feature of the urban environment in the Bulgarian capital for a year, City Hall said.

The ceremonial tomb of Georgi Dimitrov was built in 1949 to house the embalmed body of the first leader of communist Bulgaria. It was demolished in 1999, a decade after the fall of the Berlin Wall.