Eight Eyes

For their participation in the Nine Elephants Festival, Mona Steinwidder and Mitko Mitkov are developing a new piece inspired by the festival’s location—the Botanical Garden of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences overlooking the city of Sofia. It is a place where nature exists alongside, together with and despite the proximity of the capital: a loud and densely populated concrete structure that accommodates large numbers of people operating within a complex system of social, economic and cultural rules.

The project seeks to create an expanded moment in time and a stage for collective introspection. Inspired by the contrast between the calmness and abandonment of the garden—with its overgrown meadows and cracked concrete paths—and the constant noise of the busy ring road just beyond its borders, the artists aim to create a work with a soundscape that welcomes and incorporates the elements and sounds of the immediate surroundings. Mona’s soundscape is accompanied by Mitko’s associative reflections on a place, whether imaginary or real, that each person carries within themselves while moving through the city.

The work explores themes of belonging and, more broadly, envisions a future not far away in which the blurred boundary between human-made infrastructure and nature may gradually disappear.

The collaboration between Mona Steinwidder and Mitko Mitkov is usually, though not always, based on an exchange between sound and words. This exchange unfolds through a fluid process and a layering of ideas that move back and forth at their own pace. Their joint work is grounded above all in mutual trust in their individual approaches to writing and composing.

Their current project is a continuation of Swimming Pool Reflections, first performed live on the occasion of an exhibition by the artist Gesa Troch and later released as an album on the Warsaw-based label Mondoj. Their performances are site-specific and fluid, framed by a loose structure that allows space for improvisation.