#EuropeAtHome in Bulgarian
Countries from all around Europe united by the European Capital of Culture Initiative started on the 30th April 2020 an online platform dedicated to the idea EUROPE AT HOME #EuropeAtHome, presenting through the lens of artists the days of isolation and social and physical distancing caused by COVID-19 regulations.
The Portugal candidate city for ECOC in 2027 Faro, decided to extend an invitation to local and European artists who - through text and images - to show their reflection upon their own city in the time of the pandemic. Past, present, future ECoC cities joined from Lithuania, Finland, Netherlands, Germany, Serbia, Estonia, Malta, Luxemburg, Norway, Slovenia, Bulgaria.
Thanks to the partnership between Plovdiv 2019 Foundation and the Plovdiv-based media www.podtepeto.com and the authors Teodor Karakolev and Georgi Matov, we presented Plovdiv with a written impression and 10 photographs. You can find them as well as all the other authors and cities here: https://www.europeathome.eu/
#EuropeAtHome is now in Bulgarian language
From the 9th May /Europe's day/ The column „EuropeAtHome“ in the plovdivian media Pod Tepeto will present the cities and the texts in Bulgarian language here: https://podtepeto.com/aktualno/evropa-vkusthi-na-bulgarski/ and in our website here.
#EuropeAtHome | We start with Valletta 2018.
“The result is clear: routine turns into daily rituals and the living during quarantine - into a slow dance to a present moment.” We present #EuropeAtHome and Kaunas 2022 with the text by Jorė Gritėnaitė and photos by Gabija Vainiutė. Check out the full text here.
“How essential is my work in times of crisis, but also, how can I keep the essence of my work alive in confinement?”
#EuropeAtHome
Esch 2022 now in Bulgarian: text by Catherine Elsen, photos by Sophie Feyder.
Full text here: https://bit.ly/36dg1dB
Photos: Vasco Célio
Text: Sandro William Junqueira
Invited by the city Faro, Portugal
“Reality remains a clenched fist punching fiction repeatedly and daily. One single thing. Not two. Making us poorer. Paul Celan had warned us about the impossibility of writing after tragedy has occurred. Indifferent to all this, my dog has been taking me for walks through the empty city streets. And I have obeyed him. And I will continue to obey him, grateful.” Full text here.
Photos: Kiur Kaasik
Text: Carolina Pihelgas
Invited by the city Tartu, Estonia
"when people are absent, there is always wind. dust flies down my throat and I try to keep from coughing. wind flies through my sentences like a bird which cannot remember from whence it set out or where it should alight." Full text here.
#EuropeAtHome
Text: Liv Okkenhaug
Photos: Dan Mariner
Invited by the city Bodø, Norway
“It was her birthday, and I congratulated her by pretending to embrace her from a two metres distance behind my shopping cart. She thanked me in the same cordial, pantomime way, and said it felt very strange. It was her first birthday without getting a single hug.“ Full text here.
#EuropeAtHome
Text: Johanna Eisner
Photos: Philipp Gladsome
Chemnitz | English version
“Home is now the office, the gym, school, the playground, the pub, the concert hall, the club. Three rooms, dance floor, bathroom. Home is no longer defined simply by your own four walls, though, but also by your own four screens. The public sphere has taken on a new dimension - the pixels on computer and mobile phone displays that translate into virtual reality what real life is missing right now.“ Full text here.
#EuropeAtHome
Text: Jamila Faber
Photos: Jacob van Essen
Leeuwarden | English version
“Talking, talking, so much talking
About nothing and everything all at once
But words evaporate
And I’m touch starved“ Full text here.
#EuropeAtHome
Text: Katariina Vuori
Photos: Harri Tarvainen
Oulu | English version
“When the safe distance grew by a metre, it grew difficult to use the public sauna: who would sit that far away from another naked, even unknown, person?“ Full text here.
Text: Lászlo Végel
Photos: Marija Kovač
Novi Sad | English version translated by Ivana Đurić Paunović
“In hospitals and clinics people are tested for coronavirus; in return, the coronavirus is testing us.“ Full text here.
#EuropeAtHome
Text: Juan Kruz
Photos: Marcelo Utreras
San Sebastian | English version
“I’ve stopped reading Montaigne and started reading in the cat’s eyes. All of Bakunin’s anarchism fits into one of his eyelashes. He’s just winked. He looks at the world with a cosmic indifference from his balcony. With another wink it turns all of Montaigne’s irony into dust.“ Full text.
Text: Maja Bjelica
Photos: Brad Downey
Piran | English version
“But the windows and doors remain closed, and like Europe, you are rope(d) at home. Some of us will stay roped but out of commitment and care.“ Read the full text here.
#EuropeAtHome
Text: Kilián László
Photos: Gábor Gáspár
Veszprém | English version
“Though we are peering down at the empty streets and squares, we are seeing last summer’s escapades and the incoming cavalcade.“ Link to the full text here.
Text: Teodor Karakolev
Photos: Georgi Matov
Plovdiv 2019 in partnership with the Pod Tepeto media| English version
“Life under quarantine is like a hot summer’s day. Or a heavy raining one. It is difficult to judge in Plovdiv. The quarantine for sure makes us feel strange, weird, as in a movie or computer game script.“ Full text here.
Text: Alexandra Felseghi
Photo by Gabriel Aldea, Illustration by Alina Lipotchi
Cluj | English version
“Today is Sunday and it used to be the day when I was browsing through flight offers, plan holidays, to avoid telling anyone I stayed home all summer.” Read full text here.
Text: Vid Kmetič
Photos by Janez Klenovšek
Maribor | English version
Slovenian-English translations made by Rok Kodrič
His beloved native Maribor was never known for pulsing at a hundred and eighty beats per minute; it preferred rather to bubble beneath the surface while keeping a straight face for the outside world, but during the past month, its usual calm grew even greater.
Text: Helene Bukowski
Photographer: Anna-Lena Schotge
Hildesheim | English version
Spring has come with all its might, but you're at home. Life has shifted into your own four walls. You rarely use your voice. Only in your head is it constantly heard. What do you see when you look out of your window? House-fronts, a piece of sky, blossoming trees and birds?