Triptych for Fondovi Zhilishta
19 July 2026, 7:00–9:00 PM
Fondovi Zhilishta Neighbourhood
The project is a collaboration with the international choral collective New Choir, led by conductor Pavel Naydenov and Vasilena Gankovska. The event is created specifically for the context of the Nine Elephants festival and explores the potential of choral music to become a tool for artistic and spatial exploration of the urban environment.
The third edition of Nine Elephants Festival will conclude with Triptych for Fondovi Zhilishta Neighbourhood, a collaborative project by the vocal ensemble New Choir, directed by Pavel Naydenov, and the artist Vasilena Gankovska. The project will take place in Fondovi Zhilishta Neighbourhood, one of Sofia’s oldest working-class neighbourhoods. It also serves as the thematic culmination of the festival under the title Everything We Do.
Fondovi Zhilishta Neighbourhood is one of Sofia’s early working-class neighbourhoods, developed in the context of the city’s industrial expansion. It is characterised by a distinctive urban fabric, including generous inter-block spaces, the nearby transport depot, workers’ housing with architecture typical of the 1930s and more recently constructed residential developments.
New Choir ventures into the neighbourhood’s inter-block spaces, where the human voice becomes a tool for orientation, play and discovery. Immersing themselves in the stories, architecture, vegetation and collective memory of Fondovi Zhilishta Neighbourhood and its surrounding areas – Banishora, Zona B-18, and Zaharna Fabrika Neighbourhoods. The gathered impressions and observations serve as the basis for vocal and sonic interpretations.
Led by Pavel Naydenov, the choir transforms these encounters into song, evoking the layered existence of the neighbourhood: its past and present social rhythms, architectural structures, plant life and unseen stories. Singing unfolds as a collective practice that turns playgrounds, pathways and open spaces into stages for shared imagination.
In parallel, Vasilena Gankovska, who has lived in the area for many years, presents a personal cartography of the neighbourhood – composed of places, images, texts and manifestos that have emerged through her artistic research in Fondovi Zhilishta Neighbourhood. That can be benches, overlooked corners. Traces of everyday life and sites of personal significance become markers on this “alternative map” that serves as a base for movement through the neighbourhood, activated by the choir through its presence and performance.
New Choir is an interdisciplinary vocal ensemble that brings together diverse biographies and perspectives within a shared sonic space. Despite its collective form, the choir remains a place for individual experience and free expression – both in the routines of everyday urban life and in the exploration of unfamiliar environments.
The collaborative project seeks to expand the ways in which the neighbourhood can be experienced – not as a background, but as an active stage shaped by everyday gestures, neighbourly practices and small interventions that form both its visible and invisible architecture.
New Choir is a newly established international choral collective based in Vienna. Its vision is to present the tradition of choral music in a contemporary context – through the exploration of space using sound sculptures, bodily movement and interactions with other media such as dance, performance, visual art and electroacoustic interventions.
The choir is conducted by Pavel Naydenov, who has been living and working in Vienna since 2016. He is a classically trained musician and choral conductor, as well as a contemporary and performance artist, artist-researcher and curator.
Vasilena Gankovska is a visual artist and researcher working at the intersection of art, urban environments and social processes. Her practice includes performance, installation, visual notes, collective artistic actions and artistic research, often developed within specific urban contexts. Her work engages with themes such as the memory of places, invisible social structures and the ways in which communities interact with space. Her projects frequently involve the participation of local residents and create platforms for collective thinking and action in the urban environment.
In partnership with Serdika District.
With the financial support of the National Culture Fund and Sofia Municipality – Summer Programme and the Mobility Programme.
The presentation is part of the project Creation of 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 the Cultural and Creative Sectors, Procedure BG-RRP-11.020, Grant Scheme Creation of Bulgarian Productions and Co-productions in the CCI Sector and their Promotion in European and International Arts Markets of the Recovery and Resilience Plan.
The entire responsibility for the content of the project lies with Blue Cube Foundation and under no circumstances can it be assumed 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