INTERVENTION: WEAVING DRUZHBA BY MARIA MINKOVA

When: assembly 5 and 6 July 2025, 17:00-21:00 + brunch 20 July 2025, 10:00-12:00

Where: Druzhba district, the florists by the lake

On 5 and 6 July – a week before the opening of “Nine Elephants” VOL. 2 – FANTASTIC ROUTES, the festival team together with Maria Minkova and the residents of the neighborhood cordially invite you to transform the flower shops on the lake in the residential district “Druzhba” by weaving into them stories, incidents, people and places we love and return to. On 20 July in the context of Imagining Cities we invite you to a brunch at the same venue, where we will meet the artist and talk about both her practice and the role of art in the city.

“Weaving Druzhba draws inspiration from the notion of the neighbourhood as a fabric in which people are the threads that make up its uniqueness and essence. In this context, Maria Minkova uses former flower shops – metal structures located by the lake in the district of Druzhba. Originally intended to enrich the public space, they have lost their function over time. The intervention will involve weaving threads and strips of different materials, sizes and colours between the metal rods of these structures.

It is the connective tissue that assembles incidents and routes, stories and people, places and buildings, and makes them be this intangible thing they call “the spirit of the neighborhood.” This fabric is formed by the personal threads of everyone who lives, passes through or even got lost there. On the surface it is quite fragile and elusive, but anyone who has lived in, felt and called their place “the neighborhood” or “the neighborhood” understands intuitively. The threads of all of us woven around the places we love to return to. The metal structure, a time-worn flowerpot, is the skeleton of our history, around its bones will swirl story-threads of every kind, material and color. The variety and even excess of materials will reflect and relate to the lake, the bridge, the cafes, and the proverbial visual identity of the Roma neighborhood across the street. This is the more complex weaving – a five-dimensional weaving of place, time, people, events and stories. The installation that will emerge at the end is about looking, tripping, tangling and untangling, but most of all about recognition. It is not exactly an artistic interpretation, but also an act of collaborative memory. The connective tissue between us and our neighborhood.

Text: Ghostdog

Take a look at the full festival program here.