Double Takes
July 16 and 18, 2026
Swimming Pool & Botanical Garden of BAS (as part or Opera Ecologica)
In collaboration with KADIST – an international contemporary art organization based in Paris with a global network of curators and collaborators across five continents – and as part of its video program Double Takes, the Nine Elephants festival presents a selection of films that connect contemporary art with social, political, and ecological issues. The program unfolds in two parts at Swimming Pool and the Botanical Garden of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences (as part of the Opera Ecologica events program). The selected films resonate with the festival’s theme of the city as a living, constantly transforming body – ecological, emotional, collective, and mnemonic.
At the first screening, taking place on 16 July at Swimming Pool, we will present films by Jeremy Deller and Christian Jankowski that explore and question the role of art in shaping, activating, and reimagining the public sphere. The special guest of the evening will be Atelier Ad Hoc (Bucharest), an architectural practice operating at the intersection of architecture, design, and cultural research, with a focus on socially engaged and ecologically sensitive approaches. Together with them, we will discuss topics related to the post-socialist city, neoliberal transformations, and shifting forms of publicness.
The second screening will take place outdoors at the Botanical Garden of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences. as part of the Opera Ecologica program. We will present films by Giselle Beiguelman, Alice Bucknell, Olga Grotova, Driant Zeneli, and Isadora Neves Marques. These works emphasize the need to listen to the earth, plants, river, and wind as carriers of stories that outlive empires and their extractive logics.
KADIST is a non-profit contemporary art organization that believes artists make an important contribution to a progressive society through their artwork, which often addresses key issues relevant to the present day. Dedicated to exhibiting the work of artists—from more than one hundred countries—represented in its collection, KADIST affirms contemporary art’s role within social discourse, and facilitates new connections across cultures. With a hub in Paris and staff and advisors on five continents, KADIST organizes exhibitions, physical and online programs, and hosts residencies. KADIST stays apprised of developments in contemporary art via a global advisor network, and develops collaborations internationally, including with leading museums, fostering vibrant conversations about contemporary art and society.
Double Takes is a program initiated by KADIST in 2023 and developed in collaboration with international partners. Drawing on KADIST’s video collection, it features screenings, conversations, and artistic programs that place artists’ perspectives at the heart of contemporary issues. Each edition is extended on KADIST.tv, KADIST’s video platform.
Atelier Ad Hoc is a Bucharest-based architecture practice founded by Daria Oancea and George Marinescu. Operating both as an architectural studio and a non-profit organisation, their practice explores alternative ways of responding to social and ecological conditions. Positioned in-between architecture, design, and cultural practice, the studio engages with a wide range of projects, including built work, socially engaged initiatives and research-based projects.
George Marinescu and Daria Oancea are former fellows of Akademie Schloss Solitude and currently teach in the Design Department at UNArte Bucharest. Their projects have received distinctions from the European Prize for Urban Public Space, Romanian Biennale of Architecture, Bucharest Architecture Annual, BETA – Timișoara Architecture Biennial. In 2026 they are part of the team realizing the Romanian Pavilion at the 61st International Art Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia, contributing to the spatial and architectural development of the project Black Seas – Scores for the Sonic Eye by artists Anca Benera and Arnold Estefán.
Photo: Alice Bucknell, The Alluvials, 2023 (video still) I Courtesy the artist, KADIST collection.
Links
Presentation of an audio guide that can be listened to individually or in a group during a walk through the city