Transdisciplinary festival for art in urban environment
July 10–20, 2025
We are delighted to announce the second edition of Nine Elephants—a festival for art in urban environment—taking place from July 10–20 in Sofia and its surroundings.
This year’s theme, Fantastic Routes, explores in-between moments and alternative trajectories. The presented artistic and transdisciplinary practices chart new ways of coexisting, perceiving, and storytelling within the city—routes that may be invisible, imagined, improbable, or yet to be discovered. The festival provides a platform for situated artistic practices, bringing together artistic research and socially engaged approaches, while fostering dialogue between residents and artists, poets and gardeners, experts and observers.
Over the course of ten days, the festival, curated by Viktoria Draganova, will feature a vibrant mix of over 15 initiatives from the fields of art, performance, literature, cinema, and more—each engaging with the complexities and contradictions of urban space today.
The festival opens on July 10 at Swimming Pool with the exhibition Jump! Don’t Jump, marking the tenth anniversary of the art space and featuring works by Krassimir Terziev, Andrea Popyordanova, Mihail Novakov, Alzek Misheff, Yana Lozeva, Nora Ampova, Savina Topurska, and Sasho Violetov. The exhibition explores the relationship between the space and its context, looking back on ten years of its existence as a “blue cube”—a site of imaginative practice—while presenting artistic works that reimagine swimming pools as critical, political, and transformative spaces capable of reshaping our understanding. Together with artist Zhana Ivanova, our special guest for the opening, we will warm up our imagination for the program ahead.
The festival continues on July 11 with a night of performances by Ina Dobreva, Sofia Dimova, Silvia Cherneva, and Kosta Karkashyan & Artists. In the days that follow, the festival expands into the city with urban explorations by Maria Minkova, Ashira Morris, Iva Ivanova, Maria Makedonska and Nicola Zambelli, along with collaborations with Punta Gallery, Gradoscope, and Cinema in the Village, among others.
Urban Storytelling School
One of this year’s festival spotlights is the artistic research program Urban Storytelling School, an Erasmus+ partnership initiated by the Center for Social Vision (Sofia) and C*SPACE (Berlin). The program explores storytelling as a participatory tool to engage young people in the transformation of their neighborhoods, activate communities, and foster more inclusive cities. Led by Katya Romanova and Viktoria Draganova, it brings together artists, educators, urban experts and activists who, through collaborative projects based in Berlin and Sofia, envision and reshape urban spaces for young people. Their hands-on storytelling approaches include interactive walks, experimental guides, site-specific interventions, and urban mapping. Key activities include artist residencies in Berlin and Sofia, mentoring sessions, and collaborative group projects. Several outcomes will be presented during the Nine Elephants Festival by program participants Elena Balabanska, Sofie Bang, Eleonora Edreva, Maria Fallada, Maria Getova, Guglielmo Giachino, Charlotte Kachelmann, Izabela Markova, Jamie McGhee, Ana-Maria Molnar, Asya Petkova, and Ksenia Porechina, with a publication launch planned for October in Berlin to share insights and results from the program.
Imagining Cities—two days of informal practice sharing in Sofia
On July 18 and 19, as part of the second edition of Nine Elephants, we invite you—alongside emerging artists, curators, researchers, and cultural professionals – to join an informal gathering in Sofia to share practices and ideas. Together with over 20 international participants, the program includes presentations, workshops, and walks, creating space for exchange and inspiration around new urban imaginaries. We explore the contradictions and complexities of urban life—its open structures, informal interactions, and non-discursive relationships. Inspired by street encounters, care networks, everyday activism, and unexpected affinities, we support transdisciplinary artistic and curatorial practices that imagine more desirable forms of co-living.
The Nine Elephants Festival is organized by the Blue Cube Foundation. Curator: Viktoria Draganova Coordinator: Anna Ivanova Communications: Reneta Georgieva Visual Identity: Crunchy Oyster. With the financial support of the Bulgarian National Culture Fund and Sofia Municipality. Urban Storytelling School is funded through the Erasmus+ Small Scale Partnerships Program, European Union.
