Stories from the Bottom

Author

Ina Dobreva

When
11 July 2025

Where
28 'Chumerna' St.

The performance explores the remnants at the bottom of human oblivion. The past is not an end, but a starting point for an entirely new story.

A sewing machine, a basement, and all the documents and stories forgotten within it resurface through the continuous act of stitching nearly 100 meters of fabric. Through this endlessly repeated action, the performance offers a visual metaphor for stitching together personal stories, letters, and poems—randomly found and long forgotten—that create new meaning and narrative, forming a kind of patchwork of life.
In recent years, Ina Dobreva has worked primarily with found documents, photographs, and archives, which have become a central tool in her creative research.

 

 

The performance is part of Sofia Performance Night.

Ina Dobreva graduated in Acting from NATFA in 2009 and then specialized in Paris. Since her return to Bulgaria in 2012 until 2017 she has been working as an actress at the Stoyan Bachvarov State Theatre, Sofia. In the years after that she worked as a freelancer. She realized her first solo exhibition “For Whom the Bell Tolls” in the framework of “Plovdiv 2019 – European Capital of Culture”. In Alibi (2021), she explores the effects of the coronavirus pandemic through an installation of hundreds of silk cocoons. The documentary installation I Found These Letters (2023) tells the story of two letters found under strange circumstances and their sender 30 years later. The project unravels the theme of life in the 1990s was presented in Varna 2023 and in Paris 2024. In 2024 he realized the performance “Salt is not lent” within The Artist At Play – a platform for young artists. Ina Dobreva’s latest project “Siyazh” is dedicated to perfumes, stories and fragrances collected for nearly 30 years.

The project is realized within the framework of Sofia Night Performance – the main event of the second edition of the *Nine Elephants* Festival. The event is supported financially by the National Culture Fund and the Sofia Municipality, in partnership with the Oborishte District.

Links

Presentation of an audio guide that can be listened to alone or in a group during a walk in the city