Live Dough

In a city, tucked away on some corner, there is a banitsa shop that works non-stop.
Whether after an exam or a long day at work, whether at noon or late at nigh – there is always someone there. Few places in the city bring together such radically different kinds of people.

But what exactly happens there? What can these places — and the people connected to them — teach us about the city and the country we live in today?

Live Dough is an intervention in urban space that invites audiences to immerse themselves in the world of those who knead, sell and make a living from banitsa. Through interviews, soundscape and performance, we transform a small banitsa shop in Sofia into a world full of lived experience, humour and hard-earned lessons.

Madrid Boulevard is one of the few lively commercial streets in Sofia that continues to exist outside the logic of the mall. Along the street, several bakeries, small family-run businesses and neighbourhood shops coexist with branches of major retail chains, together telling the story of the city’s present-day reality. Within the context of the Everything We Do, Lora Krasteva’s project draws attention to labour that often remains invisible, despite our daily reliance on it.

Live Dough examines the bakery as a kind of archive of the city and its moods and dreams. Behind its seemingly ordinary everyday life lie night work, accumulated knowledge, shifts in people’s tastes and habits, as well as constant efforts to adapt to the economic transformations of recent decades. Through the stories of workers and visitors, artist Lora Krasteva traces how broader social issues are inscribed in the most ordinary places and how the city is shaped not only by buildings and infrastructure, but also by the everyday actions of its people.
Featuring Boris Atanasov, Silvia Doneva, Reneta Kirilova Ivanova and Polo Oconne