Weaving Druzhba
2025
Druzhba Neighbourhood, the florists by the lake
Maria Minkova and residents of the neighbourhood transform the flower stalls at the lake in Druzhba Neighbourhood, weaving into them stories, events, people and places that we love and to which we return.
Weaving Druzhba draws inspiration from the idea of the neighbourhood as a fabric, in which people are the threads that build its uniqueness and essence. In this context, Maria Minkova uses former flower stalls – metal structures located by the lake in the Druzhba Neighbourhood. Initially intended to enhance the public space, over time they have lost their function. The intervention involves weaving threads and strips of different materials, sizes, and colours between the metal rods of these structures.
The connective tissue is what assembles events and routes, stories and people, places and buildings and turns them into that intangible thing called the “spirit of the neighbourhood.” This tissue is formed from the personal threads of everyone who lives, passes through or has even gotten lost there. Visually, it is quite fragile and elusive, but anyone who has lived in, felt, and called a place their “neighbourhood” or “hood” understands it intuitively. The threads of all of us are entangled around the places we love to return to.
The metal structure – once a flower stall – is the skeleton of our story; around its bones, story-threads of all kinds, materials and colours will swirl. The diversity and even the excess of materials, reflects and interweaves the lake, the bridge, the cafés and the proverbial visual identity of the Roma Neighbourhood across the way. This is a more complex form of weaving – five-dimensional weaving of place, time, people, events and stories.
The installation is meant for looking at, stumbling through, getting entangled and disentangled, but above all for recognition. This is not exactly an artistic interpretation, but also an act of shared memory. The connective tissue between us and our neighbourhood.
Text: Ghostdog
Maria Minkova’s intervention is also the first realised artwork from the Nine Elephants collection, dedicated to possible but still unrealised art in public space.
Maria Minkova is a visual artist living and working in Sofia. She was educated in art high school with a specialty in textiles and in the National Academy of Fine Arts with a specialty in mural painting. She has significant experience in advertising, where she worked as an art director in some of the largest international agencies for more than 10 years. Maria Minkova is mainly active in the field of installations taking place in urban environments. It is their interaction with people and the impact they have on their sensations that excites and explores her curiosity. The main techniques she applies are assemblage and weaving. Taking advantage of their plasticity, beauty and genuine warmth built and sustained over the centuries, she manages to express herself in a unique way.
Part of the first edition of Nine Elephants (2024).
In partnership with Iskar Municipality. With thanks to TUPLEX for providing the materials.
The presentation is part of the project “Creating New Cultural Products in the Urban Environment – presentation in Sofia (Nine Elephants Festival) and Berlin (C*Space)”, funded under Component 11 “Social Inclusion”, Investment 6 “Development of Cultural and Creative Sectors”, Procedure BG-RRP-11.020, grant scheme “Creation of Bulgarian productions and co-productions in the cultural and creative industries sector and their promotion on European and international art markets” under the Recovery and Resilience Plan. The entire responsibility for the content of the project lies with the “Sin Cube” Foundation and under no circumstances can it be considered that this document reflects the official position of the European Union or the National Culture Fund.
Links
Presentation of an audio guide that can be listened to individually or in a group during a walk through the city