Spontaneous Capitals: Sofia-Budapest
Opening: July 16 2026, 6:00-8:00 PM
Liszt Institute Sofia
Connecting the urban landscapes of Sofia and Budapest, two exhibitions will be presented at the Liszt Institute – Hungarian Cultural Institute in Sofia.
metro here – metro there is a project that swaps the metro networks of Budapest and Sofia on the cities’ maps. By walking the routes of the substituted metro lines, an entirely different image of the city emerges. The exhibition showcases traces, tags and bizarre architectural anomalies discovered and digitally documented during these walks. The project metro here – metro there is exhibited by Liszt Institute residents of Szonja Urban and Lea Novak.
Tripping on Modernist Monuments: The Elephant in the Room addresses both the everyday and uncomfortable socialist heritage of Sofia and Budapest. Moving past the nostalgic concrete elephant playground apparatus – typical of the socialist period, the research slides into contemporary realities by tracing friendship memorials. Driven by intensifying public debates surrounding the Monument to the Soviet Army in Bulgaria and the Monument to the Soviet Red Army in Hungary, the project ultimately poses the question: Whose army? What friendship?
The project is an artistic research by the collective girlscanscan, founded by Kira Szabolcs, Lea Kalfus and Lilla Kammermann.
girlscanscan is a research-led spatial practice focusing on the 20th and 21st century architectural heritage in Central and Eastern Europe through a feminist approach. The collective was founded in 2020 in Budapest, Hungary by young practitioners in the field of architecture, urbanism and cultural heritage. Since then, it approaches the (in)tangible heritage by scanning and mapping the invisible dimensions of the built environment. While exploring the socialist urban fabric, it seeks to connect these experiences with the post-socialist reality of the former Eastern Bloc and today’s heritage discourse.
In this edition, girlscanscan is represented by Kira Szabolcs, Lea Kalfus and Lilla Kammermann.
Szonja Urbán аnd Lea Novák are Budapest-based artists/curators working with walking, urban space, participation, and community-based artistic situations. Our practices are connected by an interest in how cities can be read through informal traces, hidden structures, and collective movement. Szonja Urbán is a graduating Design Culture student at Moholy-Nagy University of Art and Design, whose work focuses on participatory art and the built environment; she has previously published a photo book based on inscriptions found on a Budapest fire escape and developed walking-based site-specific projects in Rome and Budapest. Lea Novák, born in Serbia, works as a curator and event organiser, with interests in neo-avant-garde practices, grassroots initiatives, and archival projects. Together, we approach walking as a method of research, storytelling, and public engagement .
With the financial support and in partnership with Hungarian Cultural Institute in Sofia.
Links
Presentation of an audio guide that can be listened to individually or in a group during a walk through the city