The association “Sapromat”, together with the anthropologist Konstantin Georgiev, create an audio-walk through the streets of the neighborhood “Kyulutzite”, which offers us a story that looks at the functions of the buildings in the neighborhood and its invisible infrastructural logics. In the process, the artists work with archival documents and field research, creating a narrative that stands beyond specific events and historical periods. The imaginary “Center for Urban Studies” plays an important role in this narrative – and the participants of the walk become its collaborators. The artists combine found objects and imaginary narratives of inter-block wanderings, opening windows onto the past and future of the neighborhood and all its possible entities. Cities are both places to live and central industrial and transportation hubs – sometimes these functions exist side by side, and the experience of these boundaries is different for each of us.

At the very beginning of the walk, all the attendees are given tools with which they can point out elements important for the imagination and the city – most often these turn out to be things that no one would have paid attention to. The colour blue serves as a code and allows all participants to recognise what others have found or pointed out as interesting. The viewfinders are also in this colour to allow you to look at a particular detail and distinguish it from everything around. The poster itself has one giant hole in the middle. In time, we see that every possible point of view would also be the fruit of the imaginary “Center for Urban Studies”‘ research.

Writer Todora Radeva shares: “Kosio, Michaela and Boris offered us a voice, a blue thread and a frame through which the city around us did not narrow, but on the contrary – the more we focused our attention on our surroundings and sank into the questions that came through the headphones, the more the city grew – through Perek’s ‘method’ of describing a place; through the reflections around boundaries and different functional zones; through the disagreements, resistances and everyday practices that change the city; through the filter provided to us; through the inspiration to leave our marks on the space and to search for the alternative (or just personal) history.”

You can go through “Inter-block Wanderings” yourself – the audio guide is available here(link), and you can prepare your own blue viewfinder. Starting point. “Starting point: the garden of the neighbourhood, 13A Panayot Volov Street.