DOT Sofia Art Collection presents ‘The Choir of the Women’s Market’ audio-visual composition
DOT Sofia Art Collection is pleased to present the third exhibition in its “SOFIA STATION” series – a project launched in 2024 that explores the cultural memory and contemporary identity of the area surrounding DOT Sofia: Old Sofia, the Vazrazhdane district, and its heart — the Women’s Market.
The exhibition is from September 16 to October 10, with the opening on September 16 from 6pm to 8pm in the presence of the artists, with an artist-led tour on September 19 at 2pm and a Finissage on October 10 from 1pm to 6pm.
Following the archival photographic research presented in previous editions, this year the series continues with a new large-scale artistic intervention by the artistic duo Missirkov / Bogdanov.
Invited by the curator of DOT Sofia Art Collection, Vesselina Sarieva, as early as 2024, the artists have developed a project that has been seeking its realisation for several years. THE CHOIR OF THE WOMEN’S MARKET is a large-scale audio-visual composition inspired by one of the market’s most distinctive characteristics: its polyphony of voices.
Every walk through the Women’s Market leads through a kind of sound labyrinth: endless phone conversations, voices speaking different languages, everyday stories, snippets of random sentences, and the rhythm of urban life. This seemingly ordinary everyday phenomenon becomes the starting point for Missirkov and Bogdanov’s artistic work. From this apparent noise, they create a musical composition — a contemporary mini-oratorio of sorts, in which speech gradually transforms into music.
The installation comprises 50 video screens, compositionally arranged like a cloud across one of the walls of the exhibition space. On each screen, viewers encounter one of the characters of the Women’s Market – vendors, barbers, butchers, craftspeople, migrants, and local residents. They speak or sing directly to the camera, as though engaged in a video conversation with an invisible interlocutor.
The sound composition begins as a chaotic polyphony, with each person speaking in their own language and telling their own story. Gradually, a rhythm begins to emerge from the noise: individual words are repeated, voices become synchronised, and eventually they merge into a shared melody.
The composition incorporates motifs from songs belonging to the different communities inhabiting the area – melodies associated with migration, home, separation, and hope. Based on these musical themes, the project’s composer has created an original work —-a kind of “Anthem of the Women’s Market”, which symbolically brings all the participants together.
Alongside the video installation, a graphic map provides information about each participant – their name, age, and profession. On the opposite wall, viewers see a drone-shot time-lapse of the market, in which the flows of people form a kind of living organism, while light animations trace the individual voices in synchrony with the sound composition.
The project has been realised by an interdisciplinary team bringing together visual art, music, technology, and field research. Kaloyan Dimitrov is the composer and author of the sound editing; Aleksandar Rizov is responsible for programming and technical implementation; Aleksandar Zhelev for technical realisation; Teodora Niforu for field research and coordination; and Neda Milanova is the project manager. The production is by AGITPROP.
THE CHOIR OF THE WOMEN’S MARKET is both a document and an artistic interpretation of one of Sofia’s most colourful public spaces. The project transforms everyday conversations into music and chance human encounters into a collective choir that tells the story of the contemporary city.
About the Artists
Boris Missirkov (b. 1971, Sofia) and Georgi Bogdanov (b. 1971, Varna) have worked exclusively as an artistic duo for more than two decades. They graduated from the National High School for Ancient Languages and Cultures, the National Academy for Theatre and Film Arts (NATFA), and the experimental centre FABRICA in Italy.
They are photographers, visual artists, cinematographers, and directors, as well as co-founders of the Bulgarian Photographers’ Association and the production company AGITPROP. Alongside their photographic practice, they have created numerous documentary films, experimental videos, and visual campaigns, and have curated a number of exhibitions of contemporary Bulgarian photography.
Their works are held in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art in Rio de Janeiro, Musée de l’Elysée in Lausanne, the Museum of Photography in Odense, the National Art Gallery, the Sofia City Art Gallery, the National Library of France, as well as those of Erste Bank, UniCredit, and the European Parliament.
Art historian Walter Seidl describes their work as a form of “staged documentary”, simultaneously documenting and interpreting the social reality of post-socialist Bulgaria.
About DOT Sofia Art Collection
DOT Sofia Art Collection is a private collection dedicated to contemporary Bulgarian art, featuring emblematic works by both established and emerging artists. With more than 200 works, the collection is inspired by humour, the melancholic depth of the Bulgarian soul, and everyday themes in Bulgaria and around the world. The works explore the possibility of empathy and the joy of coexistence in a world marked by social, ethnic, political, and ethical fluctuations and contrasts.
DOT Sofia’s annual projects also include a photographic and archival project documenting the Women’s Market, as well as cultural events with Sarieva/Gallery, open to art enthusiasts and those who want to discover something new.
The exhibition “THE CHOIR OF THE WOMEN’S MARKET” is a production by AGITPROP.
The project is realised with the financial support of the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Bulgaria.
