PL - o festiwalu
Staro Zhelezare 2022
Staro Zhelezare is a small village in central part of Bulgaria, today it is already the most known STREET ART VILLAGE in Eastern Europe.
It is the unique open-air art gallery, where houses and fences are painted with visages of local people together with world known icons like politicians, different kinds of celebrities, chosen by the householders. It is also called THE VILLAGE OF PERSONALITIES.
The project is realized in Bulgaria, but with crucial Polish impact. It is created by young artists from Poznan - students of the Ventzi School of Art and, at the same time, students of the Poznań University of Arts under the leadership of Katarzyna and Ventzislav Piriankov. The project is patronized by PLOVDIV 2019 European Capital of Culture, the Mayor of Poznań, Middlesex University in London, Art on the Streets/Art as Intervention/ Middlesex University, ECHIC – European Consortium for Humanities Institutes and Centres, HERA – Network of Humanities and the Research Area, Polish Institute in Sofia, Architecture Studio ADS Poznan, Foundation TAMITU, Asz Teatr in Poznan, The Institute of Slavic Philology at the University of Adam Mickiewicz in Poznan.
The project is realized at the form of the Staro Zhelezare Street Art Festival each summer, since 2015.
Last summer 2018, the first rural branch of the New York MoMA was created in Staro Zhelezare, the greatest works of modernism masters as Mondrian, Matisse, Picasso, Rothko, Schielle and others, hung here at the village collection, of course as murals.
The nearest edition will be the part of the official program of PLOVDIV 2019 European Capital of Culture, under the name “Futuristic Utopia and Manifesto of a Beautiful Future”.
The project has a very wide media coverage, Staro Zhelezare is permanently present in all Bulgarian, Polish, but also world media, as The New York Times, Reuters, The Guardian, CNN, TimeOut Dubai, American Press Agency, Chinese CGTN, Arab The National, The Guardian, Le Monde and others.
“The idea is to use the village as our canvas and to transform it into a work of art.”
Старо Железаре
Staro Zhelezare lies in the upper part of the Thracian Plain where the
first Neolithic settlements were created at the turn of the 4th and 5th
millennium BC. Since then, these areas have been continuously inhabited
resulting in a multitude of cultural layers, each of which has left its mark on
the local heritage.
Regarding the name of the village – Staro Zhelezare means Old Iron village,
but until 1934 it was called Демирджилери (Demirdzhileri), which means also Old
Iron in Turkish. Before that it had the name Kovachite – Blacksmiths. The
village was on the commercial route (Druma) from Pazardzhik to Sofia, and was
the main point for shoeing horses. Consequently, the blacksmith tradition is
also important, one which was continued by the Gypsy population.
From the sixth to the first century BC these were areas inhabited by
Thracians. One of the main village
symbols is at the entrance to the village, a Thracian cromlech - a stone circle
which served as an astronomical observatory.
Due to the lack of stone building material, from the earliest times houses
were built here from adobe – mud bricks dried in the sun – and a material still
used today for most of the village buildings.
The specific residential layout also comes from Thracian times in which the
houses are built with windows facing the gardens which creates a kind of patio,
but without windows from the street side. All plots are fenced off with high,
long walls, which are especially important to increase the safety of the
residents. The effect of this approach and the continuation of this tradition
helps maintain the specific, unique atmosphere of the village, which features
long street corridors, with walls extending along all the streets. It occurs,
that it is the perfect space for artist.
Karl
Lagerfeld atelier at Staro Zhelezare
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Black and white, Alfred Hitchcock and
Princess Diana, Angela Merkel and Bob Marley, The Beatles and Rowan Atkinson’s
Mr Bean, Mahatma Gandhi and Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin and Barack Obama,
Boyko Borisov and Christo Botev, and many more celebrities cover the walls of
Staro Zhelezare. Each of them is coupled with a seemingly ordinary man or
woman, dressed in the way local villagers do (T-shirts, plain dresses).
Angela Merkel with Granny Sabka
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The Beatles with Alexander
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Some of the ordinary people shake hands with the international or
national celebrities, share a table or laugh with them, ride carts, tend farm
animals.
For the outsider, the effect is a gallery of familiar personalities, depicted
in their trademark postures, costumes and moods. For the insider, however, this
openair gallery has a second meaning – the faces of the villagers, their smiles
and personality traits, are equally recognisable. The graffiti of Staro
Zhelezare are simultaneously a representation of people of global and local
importance.
These encounters of world-renowned
personalities in the company of local heroes typically take the form of
amicable meetings for quiet, reflective exchanges of views. What do the subjects
communicate to each other? What can be learnt? That we can only possibly guess
as it is the element of surprise found in the sight of the collision of distant
worlds which opens new areas of reflection. The meeting of separate cultures at
the individual level touches upon what we are in fact looking for… authenticity
and the essence of our times.
Nikolay, Pope Francis
- I talk with the most clever guy in the village
|
Bay Ivan, Barack Obama
- Obama, he is actually my cousin. I
would invite him for a beer.
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Baba
Velika as every afternoon, is sitting on the bench and having a chat with her
neighbour. This time with Queen Elizabeth.
|
Curiously, a mural on the facade of the
local church shows Indira Gandhi and Fidel Castro. This is not
accidental - in1968 the village was visited by the Indian prime minister, and
in 1972, legendary Fidel Castro also paid a visit to Staro Zhelezare.
The black-and-white graffiti at Staro Zhelezare are
the brainchild of a Bulgarian-Polish artistic couple, KATARZYNA AND VENTSISLAV
PIRYANKOV, and his students from Poznan Art University
Katarzyna and Ventzislav Piriankov
- artists, creators of Staro Zhelezare
Street Art Village
|
Ventzi was born in this picturesque region. In the early 90s he spent a year studying in the Art Academy in Sofia before winning a contest and
going to the Polish city of Poznan, where he continued his studies. There he
created an art school that trains young artists.
The project is created with significant Polish
participation.
The festival hosts the most talented students of Piriankovs’ School of
Drawing VENTZI, who are also students of the Poznan Art University.
The idea, Mr. Piriankov said, “was to use the village as our canvas
and to transform it into a work of art.”
It all started in 2014, when the Piryankovs organised the first Mural
Festival called Village of Personalities - Art for Social Change here.
From that time each summer they visit
Staro Zhelezare togethet with their Polish students. They spent time in their Piriankov
Art Center - Art House transformed from Ventzi’s grandparents’ cottage.
Yanko Mitev, who spends his days wandering the village, who is the big
lover of art activity in the village, is painted in the company of Patriarch
Cyril of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church known from rescuing the Jews during
World War II; Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum of Dubai; Boris III, the
former czar of Bulgaria; and a generic Orthodox Jew in a black hat and side
curls.
Above this sene are Polish politicians of
opposite sides, who can’t stop quarreling even at the company of Pope John Paul
II. Selfportraits
of Polish artists are painted among them.
Entering the village you will see the Transformer, painted with figures
of local girls, Bulgarian singer Lili Ivanova and Tina Turner. They all welcome people comming to Staro
Zhelezare.
Next
to it there is a long wall transformed into the Iconostasis of contemporary
Artists like Le Corbusier, Joseph Beuys, Andy Warhol, J.M. Basquiat, Mark
Rothko, L.M. van der Rohe, Tadeusz Kantor, Franz Kafka and Banksy. There is
local girl Sabka, artists Magellan and Guma among them.
Baba
Delia is sitting with her mulatto grandson and Bob Marley.
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Artists at work. Grandpa who was living here, spending
his life with his sheep, invited Christo Stoichkov, Bulgarian legendary
football player, who has his roots in Staro Zhelezare region.
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Mike
Tyson and owner’s friend Pavel, they both love pigeons. Pavel is a big fan of
Mike Tyson, whose first fight was when he was 10, and some boy killed his
beloved pigeon.
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Marylin
Monroe in the company of two pigs. They are also Staro Zhelezare residents.
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In summer 2017 artists created an
ART MANIFESTO, which aims to turn village life into the forefront of
avant-garde art.
MANIFESTO OF VILLAGE AVANT-GARDE
REAL AVANT-GARDE IS BORN IN THE VILLAGE!
VILLAGE IS THE SOURCE OF PROGRESSIVE IDEAS!
STARO ZHELEZARE IS THE SOURCE OF PROGRESSIVE IDEAS!
ALL ARTISTS TO THE VILLAGE!
VILLAGE FUTURISM IS COMMING!
LONG LIVE THE WORLDWIDE VILLAGE ART – DECISIVE FACTOR OF SOCIETY
DEVELOPMENT!
IN THE CITY A MAN EXPLOITS A MAN, AND IN THE VILLAGE IT’S JUST THE
OPPOSITE!
CITIZENS! BE READY FOR VILLAGE AVANT-GARDE!
EACH VACCINATED VILLAGE ARTIST – THE PILLAR OF HUMANITY DEVELOPMENT!
LET’S RAISE ART TO A HIGHER LEVEL!
VILLAGE AVANT-GARDE IS INEVITABLE!
ARTISTS
ON BARRICADES!
MOMA 2018
“The Village of Personalities”
“Reconstruction of a Bulgarian Village / Art for social change”
“Reconstruction of a Bulgarian Village / Art for social change”
A festival celebrating tolerance,
multiculturalism, migration, metamorphosis, and other possible realities.
Further
information about the festival can be found on our facebook site:
https://www.facebook.com/PiriankovArtCenter/
Find us on Google
maps:https://www.facebook.com/PiriankovArtCenter/
https://maps.google.pl/maps/ms?msid=203315012784224101944.0004e2df8d64b08188ef0&msa=0&ll=42.440567%2C24.652215&spn=0.000978%2C0.002642
PCCA / PIRIANKOV
CENTRE FOR CONTEMPORARY ART, STARO ZHELEZARE
curators: Katarzyna i Ventzislav Piriankov
curators: Katarzyna i Ventzislav Piriankov