Projects 2007

GOATMILK 2007

Memories festival 24-26 May 2007
Gorna Bela Rechka, Bulgaria

The GOATMILK festival is a meeting place where a special attention is devoted to the memory and the way we connect with our own memories.
We try to put the high voltage questions about the personal and collective memory in a new perspective and environment - offering at one hand the relaxed ambiance of one authentic Bulgarian Balkan village with its hospitality, goat milk and walnut trees and, on the other hand, innovative and creative approaches from the European debates in the field of memories, identity and digital culture.
The real aim of the fest is to meet people and worlds that usually don't mix at all and to offer an opportunity to everybody to feel included, part of the movement, him (her) self.

This year the big GOATMILK topic is the LETTERS we use to write – the Cyrillic alphabet as a common memory/border/problem/heritage/identity/connection. You can become a part of the workshops, paint, write, play, and vote for the best projects. More to do – you can turn your own memory into a jewel (have a look at the Gallery Sariev workshop), check where you live most of the time – in the past, present or future (look at the Polish psychologists workshop and bring 3 photos with you, in any case), listen to the Czech Oral historians how and why oral history is becoming nationwide popular among Czechs (look at the oral history workshop).
If you ask yourself – what (if anything) is moving in that village by the festival– come and ask your questions live (look at the round table on Bela Rechka on 25th of May).
And because the fest is more than anything else about the senses – you can just come and learn how to do belly dancing from Murat, coming from Istanbul, or how to do the not so easy steps on the Northwestern horo dances by the grannies Hristina and Elena from Bela Rechka, to listen live to the brass orchestra from Varshetz or the spontaneous music made by Unmani (bass, harmonium, percussions, tampuri, violin) in one of the village yards.
More – when you come to the place.
How to arrive, how to book for the workshops, what are the prices, where to sleep and eat – on www.goatmilk-fest.org
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24 May, Thursday
13.00: awards to the best projects from the contest ABOUT THE LETTERS
Lunch with local delicatessen

14.00: the letters – conversation with the authors of the installations about the letters Nagledna agitazija/ visual methods of using the letters as political propaganda in communism, video, photography, books, Rayo Stanev)/read more
Letters-crowns/portraits of 1st grade pupils, photography, Maria Dzhelebova), read more

15.00: presenting the project COUPLES, photography, Sava Halvachek&dDesiree Good, Zurich, Switzerland/read more

Afternoon workshops
16.00 -18.00: how to dance the Northwestern horo (local teachers from Bela Rechka Elena&Hristina)
Belly dancing lessons (Adem Murat, musician, Istanbul) – places are limited, book in advance/read more

18.00: maiden choir, Plovdiv, Musical Academy, conductor Jana Deliradeva – greetings to Bela Rechka

19.00: brass orchestra, Varshetz – live concert

21.00: open performance “Prophets of Alphabet”, Czech group mamapapa/read more


25 May, Friday
11.00 – 13.00: conversation about Bela Rechka – what the festival is changing in the region – presenting the study about social impact of GOATMILK on the local community – Yuri Valkovski, Sofia University – together with Varshetz Municipality and Goethe Institut – Sofia – talking about authenticity, risks and the future

Afternoon workshops
14.30 -17.00: A dear memory – bring a dear memory, turn it into a jewel – gallery Sariev& Zveti Alexievaread more

16.00 -19.00: workshop on oral history on communism – Bulgarian, Czech and Slovak experience/read more

17.00: Belly dancing lessons

19.00: how to dance the Northwestern horo
brass orchestra, Varshetz – live concert

21.00: Eco-journey to the Middle East– open air video screenings – Stanislav Miler - www.ecoauto.info/


26 May, Saturday
11.00 – 16.00: workshop about time– where do we live most – in the past, presence or future? Agnieszka Cwielag and Marzena Ryba (social psychologists, Poland)read more

Afternoon workshops
15.00: workshop for making bags from recycled materials (Galja Ivanova)

17.00: Belly dancing lessons

19.00: Global warming and what we can do here and now – open-air screenings and conversation – animator Stanislav Miler

21.00: concert in the yard – spontaneous music with UNMANI
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Off-festival

Program before the festival, 19-20 May:
Workshops:
Mamapapa and the Prophets of Alphabet – local community workshop
Workshop on letters – with the 5 nominated projects

Eco-program:
How to do composting – together with Agrolink
Cleaning the river
Signing eco roads in the mountain


Sofia and Varshetz program:
23 May – 14 June: Goethe Institute Sofia - Exhibition Couples by Sava Halvachek and Desiree Good
23 May: Varshetz, open air presentation – Bela Rechka is traveling around the world
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Nagledna agitazija_NА (visual methods of using the letters as political propaganda in communism)
NА aims to recall the visual methods used in communism for a political propaganda and to find the place of the letters in that process.
In order to function better, the complex world of the communist society needs norms to rule the human behavior. How these rules have been shown, how the mechanism for their creation has evolved in time.
NA is a space for memories and stories from the time of communism. The viewer is also a part of that space and can leave own traces in the space of the installation.
The installation has 2 parts:
MEMORIES – 2-3 wooden shelves with specialized books on graphic design from the 80s. On both sides are placed in frames some of the most interesting pages on visual propaganda.
LETTERS – on the wall there is a paper where with old wooden letters and ink the viewer can leave a sign and at the same time become familiar with the technology from that time called letterpress/relief printing. On the other side the viewer could write/play a word, sentence or memory with the help of a computer and beamer – there is a sound assembled to every sign and letter.

Letters- crowns, photography by Maria Dzhelebova
Everything started with one meeting of all parents in the school of my son. Every year there is a celebration about the letters – immediately after the 1st grade pupils learn the alphabet. The kids had to wear crowns on their head with one of the letters and to recite poems about it. The teachers asked me to make portraits of the kids. Than I decided to take pictures on white background and put the portraits in the class room. So the white gave to all of them a certain degree of spirituality and brought a flavor of real celebration into the classroom. The portraits are with crowns – a happy possibility to celebrate and experience the magic world of knowledge. Maria Dzhelebova

Couples, Bulgarian portraits, Sava Halvachek – Desiree Good, Zurich, Switzerland
Sava and Desiree document what makes our lives a story, a novel or a legend – the bonds that marriage partners establish and what happens between them. Their project proposes an exploration of the idea that “the roots of human behavior in society lie in personal and intimate contacts”.
The 27 portraits of Bulgarian couples are taken between 15 September and 21 October in 2005. The couples come from a variety of backgrounds and are people who Sava and Desiree either met in the street or through friends or who just volunteered to take part in the project. Couples is their first joint project and their first introduction to Bulgaria.
Sava graduated photography in Berlin, Desiree in the Visual School of Art, New York. Both live in Zurich, Switzerland.

Belly dancing lessons, Adem Murat, Istanbul
Adem Murat is a professional musician and dancer. He will teach basic positions and steps for dancing the classic oriental dance of love.
When: May 24, 25, 26
Duration:2-2.30 h each session
Working language: English/Turkish with translation in Bulgarian
Fee: 10 leva for a session, 26 leva for 3 sessions

Prophets of Alphabet (retracing the Cyrilic Icinography)
The project by the Czech artistic group mamapapa is inspired by the historical journey of St. Constatin (Cyril) and St. Methodus, who created the first script for Old Slavonic—the glagolic (cyrilic) alphabet—the deep roots of Slavic literacy and identity. The Prophets of Alphabet project freely retraces the steps of St. Cyril and St. Methodus, in travelling through several central European and Balkan countries(Czech republic, Slovakia, Bulgaria, Montenegro, Macedonia, Serbia, Bosnia,Hungary) and interacting with local communities through a combination of art and ethnographic methods to create a multi-site-specific project, which not only evolves with every community visited, but also connects the participants across national boundaries. The project will result in an interactive multimedia mosaic of visuals, stories, songs and local interpretations of the alphabet. The iconography and meanings attached to the glagolic script reflect the connections and differences of human experiences, community traditions, nationalities and cultural heritage of the participating countries.
The project is focused on close collaboration with communities, using new digital media in expressing ideas, appreciating and respecting local traditions, history, and craftsmanship.
The project is mainly aimed at local communities visited. It builds on the genius loci, social atmosphere and local people’s experiences, but also presents inter-connections and parallel experiences of other village communities. Site-specific events are participatory and involve audiences in each locality. The events are filmed and otherwise documented, and published with interactive multimedia story-telling software (called DADA, developed by Massimo Catalfo and Stanislav Miler), which also serves as a presentation platform both during and after completing the journey. Seminars, workshops and public presentations introduce the topic, and serve as an initiation for those who will participate and are interested in the project. The whole journey will be traced by GPS and the collected materials will be published on Google Earth online journal documenting the whole journey close to real time.
http://www.mamapapa.cz/, http://web.mac.com/milers/iWeb/proroci/About.html

A dear memory
Workshop by Sariev Gallery and Zvetelina Alexieva
Turn the memory into a jewel. Make jewel from an object from your past that you find to be kind, beautiful or meaningful. Or provoking.
Bring to the GoatMilk festival a memory that reminds you the childhood, esthetics, politics, life. By giving a new function to the object we add a new meaning, viewpoint, value to it. We will talk, share meanings with each other.
The jewels made during the workshop will be exhibited to the guests of the festival. After that everybody will take his/her own work. Participants will receive documentation for the workshop.
Participants: 8-12
time: 25. May, 14.30-17.00
duration: 2-3 hours
conditions: to have a memory/memories that you want to turn into a jewel

Workshop on oral history on communism – Bulgarian, Czech and Slovak experience
Memory awaken: voices from bellow – results from the project by the Institute for studies of the recent past – interviews in Bela Rechka, Koprivstiya and Rouse, presented by Daniela Koleva, professor at Sofia University and students in Cultural studies, Sofia University
The Czech experience:
Miroslav Vanek, head of the Center for Oral History in Prague – contemporary trends in oral history
Itka Svobodova – communist celebrations in Tschechoslovakia 1948-1989
Hana Pelikanovа – a problematic re-emigration (the Yugoslav Czechs after the WW2)
Pavel Mucke- new projects in oral history in Czech Republik
The Slovak experience:
Petra Hrenkova – oral interviews in 3 Slovak villages in the perspective of gender and cultural studies

„To capture the time”/Agnieszka Cwielag and Marzena Ryba (social psychologists, Poland)
What is time? How do we perceive time? Why does time sometimes flays away very quickly and sometimes just wears on?
The question of elapsing time depends on our individual stories. Those stories indicate how much we live in the past, how we experience the presence and how we think about the future… Time is our basic experience; it assigns the rhythm of our life. We believe we know it very well...but when we start to think about it, it often emerges that we don’t understand it… The aim of the workshop is to reflect on the phenomena of time within the context of our individual stories and the relation past – presence – future.
Time: 8 hours
Number of participants: 10-15 people
All people, who assign to the workshop, are asked to bring three photographs that are important for them.
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Partners:
Varshetz municipality
Goethe Institute
Sariev Gallery - Plovdiv
Valinor – Plovdiv
ProHelvetia – Zurich
mamapapa.cz-Prague
Capital Light
Agrolink
EDNO magazine
Gorichka
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