© Photo: bg.wikipedia.org

Some of the oldest graffiti in Bulgaria can be seen at the Magura Cave, Northwest Bulgaria. Those were drawn in different époques, as the most ancient ones date to the Paleolithic era. This is for sure some precious heritage, while contemporary graffiti cause mixed feelings. Those are called informal city culture and their origin can be traced to several decades ago and across the Atlantic Ocean. European cities were soon invaded by the new culture, Sofia among them. Usually we call graffiti the images, drawn with sprays. However, a bit different pictures can be seen in Bulgaria’s capital city over the past few years, drawn mainly with the usage of brushes and mostly on switchboards. Thus the dull grey metal boxes in two of the main streets downtown – Rakovski and Shishman now bring joy to passers-by with their colors and shine. Architect Valeri Giurov from the Transformers Association gives us more details on the project.

© Photo: Veneta Pavlova

 “Transformers was established by me and five other architects in 2009, as some sort of a hobby. However, it gradually turned into our main activity, in the way we expressed and practiced our profession in a bit more creative manner. We were six at first, then later on a few students joined us and now our team is practically constantly changing. We have an expert in urbanism, an anthropologist, we work with different designers, artists etc.”

© Photo: Veneta Pavlova

The eldest members of the association are aged 32, while the youngest participant is 16 years old. Two talented artists from the port town of Varna gave the idea for drawing on switchboards. They kicked off with their artistic street actions 7 – 8 years ago.

“We had the chance to know these guys and then we simply decided to multiply the idea and a lot more people to join us,” Valeri Giurov goes on to say. “Of course, we invited them to take part as they were the initiators of the activity in Bulgaria. Many people use switchboards for drawing around the globe. We also decided to contribute to this kind of art.”

© Photo: Veneta Pavlova

However, while street art drawings bring in some freshness in city landscape, graffiti inexorably cover the fronts of houses, stores and walls, no matter their condition…

© Photo: Veneta Pavlova

“Being an architect, I simply cannot accept these violations of private and public property,” the expert says. “Graffiti can be drawn at many other spots – transformers, subways, bridges etc. – engineer facilities with no architectural value. However, too many graffiti in a city environment can push people back.”

Sadly, the house and museum of talented sculptor Ivan Lazarov downtown Sofia is also covered with scratching. It is really hard, though, to have control.

© Photo: Veneta Pavlova

“In fact Sofia is not the only city with issues of this kind. Many European cities cannot overcome the problem. In Berlin for instance they take it for some artistic charm and even wouldn’t try to clean up the walls. The important thing, however, is people’s mentality and the quality of the pictures. If those are creative, people can take them for a modern kind of art…”

© Photo: Veneta Pavlova

As far as graffiti are concerned, it’s all up to their creators’ talent and imagination. Some of them, for instance the work of Transformers, bring in more color in the dull reality of the big cities. The association has already drawn many switchboards, along with some walls of houses, cafes, yards etc.

English version: Zhivko Stanchev