“When the acacia blooms,
then the okra is planted.
This is the beginning of summer.”

Everywhere in ‘Mladost’ we can find fruit trees – on the streets and in the parks, but mostly among the blocks. In this study, Andrea Popyordanova asks herself how so many trees have appeared in a metropolitan neighbourhood without being part of the urban landscaping plans. Our attitudes to this urban vegetation are often mixed – as “inconvenient” for the urban environment, but they also have an interesting relationship with the people living there.

The walk in “Mladost” is on a pre-prepared route and includes stories about several trees and the people who take care of them, as well as a conversation about this type of trees in an urban environment. In Swimming Pool there are materials available for the study, which Andrea Popyordanova is adding to over time.

These materials include a specially made map, about which Andrea says: “In many of my projects I work with maps because a map communicates very quickly, of course faster than text. The accumulation of information itself is very interesting – after each exploratory walk, I plot points on the map and gradually a build-up of what I learn and discover over time emerges. I like that there’s just a marking of ideas – a map doesn’t tell everything – so people reading or using the map later can encounter the place through their eyes too.”