INDUSTRY AND IMAGINATION
- viktoriadraganova
- Apr 16
- 7 min read
Updated: 6 days ago
“What is the factory for you?” – we asked Slava Savova, Nevena Georgieva, and Nevena Ekimova this question, adding the field of imagination to the conversation. In their recent projects, the three artists explore the transformations of industrial zones such as Kremikovtsi, the Kristal factory, and the Gabrovo textile factories. Through artistic research, they reveal new stories about these spaces in which infrastructure, environment, social significance, and imagination intertwine in unexpected ways.
Photos 1 and 2: "Ore", an exhibition by Slava Savova at the "Svetlina" community center, Kremikovtzi, 2025. Photos 3 and 4: "Ore", an exhibition by Slava Savova at the KO-OP, 2023. 4 and 5 - field research. Photos: Slava Savova
Kremikovtzi Mine through the eyes of Slava Savova
Ore is the title of the exhibition with which Slava Savova explores the transformation of the abandoned open-pit mine Kremikovtsi and can be seen in the lobby of the library of the Kremikovtsi – 1906. The exhibition, already presented once at the KO-OP Gallery in Sofia in 2023, traces the transition of the mine from a symbol of industrial progress and ecological exploitation into a thriving ecosystem, telling stories of unsuspected reclamation and life beyond the industry.
Slava, what is the factory for you?
The socialist factory we are talking about here is a place of transformation. Raw materials are transformed into finished products in parallel with ideological imperatives that materialize in social and economic policies. The factory produces a socialist society itself.
What is left today of these once strong industries?
In addition to the material remains of the production infrastructures, the industrial heritage is paradoxically present in the absence of industries – in the extremely impoverished regions after the closure of the factories, in the social insecurity among the former mono-industrial communities for whom retraining is almost impossible, it is present as a health imprint among retired and laid-off workers and permeates everywhere in the form of waste chemicals, polluted water sources, dust. The cities that are the result of the production capacity of the same factories also remain. The factory buildings themselves are perhaps the most insignificant trace.
How does your project make sense of the present in these places?
Ore weaves the complex and contradictory legacy of the Kremikovtsi mine with the present and possible future, tracing the spontaneous reclamation of the mine against the backdrop of the memories of the residents of the former village of Kremikovtsi - most of them workers in the metallurgical plant and the mine.
What attitude are you looking to activate through your practice?
Nature is a major driving force in my work. I trace how it flows into various social, economic, and political projects, becomes a driver of communities and governments, and grounds ideological discourses. I try to draw attention to persistent, monolithic narratives and to deconstruct them, outlining the diversity of actors that are often missing from established narratives. My focus encompasses various processes – from the post-war industrialization of the country and the exploitation of natural resources, to the commodification of mineral waters.
Crystal Factory through the eyes of Nevena Georgieva
The Crystal Factory was established in the 1930s in the city of Pernik as a Bulgarian-Belgian company. Its main activity was aimed at the production of flat glass of various thicknesses using the specific "Furco" machines for vertical drawing of the glass layer. It produced jars, tempered glass and fulfilled various special orders.
over the years of its existence. On April 27, 1998, Bulgargaz EAD suddenly stopped supplying natural gas to the plant. Today, various small production facilities continue to operate on the territory that still bears the name Crystal Factory. One of them is the chocolate factory. In her exhibition Crystal Factory , presented at the end of 2023 at the Depoo Gallery in Sofia and a little later at the Krakra Gallery in Pernik, Nevena Georgieva melts artifacts from the plant and connects them with the new unexpected form, which is a consequence of different production attitudes and searches.
Photos 1-6: "Crystal Factory", exhibition by Nevena Georgieva at Depoo Gallery, Sofia and Krakra Gallery, Pernik, 2023, as well as field research. Photos: Radostin Sedevchev.
What is the factory to you?
In its ideal version, perhaps even utopianly, the factory for me is a well-oiled machine with strict rules. A machine that, when an important part breaks down, manages to create a new one on its own and replace it. The factory can also be a mini-city, a mini-society, in which the workers coexist, have a social life, create families, and develop cultural activities.
What is left today of these once strong industries?
Almost nothing anywhere. Scattered artifacts, most of which are also not well researched and described. It is as if even the memory of this production, which involved a huge amount of labor and which had a significant output, not only for the domestic but also for the foreign market, has been erased along with the disappearance of the people who were part of this activity.
How does your project make sense of the present in these places?
The Crystal Factory no longer exists, there are artifacts that remind us of it and some of the people who worked there are still alive. By raising the topic of its unfortunate fate again, I do not aim to point a finger at the political misunderstandings of past periods. Rather, the goal is related to remembering and at the same time re-melting this past and transforming it into something new, which, however, still bears some of the recognizable distinctive features of the old. The souvenirs collected by those who worked at the factory, as well as conversations with people who were part of this same working environment, turned out to be a great starting point in this study of the possibilities for the transformation of the material. In the case of the re-melting of glass artifacts and their transformation into glass candies, I am examining precisely this social case study about the change in production attitudes in society in two radically different stages of the development of the Bulgarian economy.
What attitude are you looking to activate through your practice?
I think that art projects that work with social memory are important because they provide a new, detached view of past periods. A view that could be fresh and different from the way such seemingly banal events related to our production activities in past periods would awaken. To view them solely from a historical perspective seems not to be enough, because the modern viewer, in addition to needing to be reminded of facts from our not-so-distant past, also needs to look at these facts through another prism, which in this case is visual art.
The textile industry through the eyes of Nevena Ekimova
In several exhibitions in recent years - e.g. Pajama Party in the Belly of the Whale (2022 at ISI), Sweet Sleep (2023 at Credo Bonum), The First Ten Lives Are Usually Bad (2023 at Swimming Pool) artist Nevena Ekimova draws attention to textile production in Bulgaria, whose industrial center since the 1960s has been Gabrovo. In her works, she examines both global overproduction, leading to absolute ecological imbalance, and themes of connectedness, but also tradition/nostalgia, which we associate somewhat metaphorically with thread, knitting, and material.
Photo 1: "Pajama Party in the Belly of the Whale", exhibition by Nevena Ekimova at ISI - Institute of Contemporary Art, Sofia, 2022. Photos: Rosina Pencheva. Photo 2: Sweet Sleep, installation by Nevena Ekimova within the exhibition "Misty with Some Smoke" at Credo Bonum Gallery, 2023. Photo 3-5: "The First Ten Lives Are Usually Bad", exhibition by Nevena Ekimova at Swimming Pool, Sofia, 2023. Photos: Yana Lozeva.
Nevena, what is the factory to you?
My grandmother came to Gabrovo at the age of 14 with the only pair of family shoes to work in a textile factory. She retired there and moved to a chocolate factory, that's what I remember. I helped fold candy boxes and ate scrapped wafers. The factory provided free stays at the seaside, so I loved it.
What is left today of these once strong industries?
Huge empty buildings with trees growing in them. And the least that remains of the collective spirit - the clubs, the sports teams, the lifelong friendships. The factory has taken a lot and given a lot.
How does your project make sense of the present in these places?
I often work with large quantities of material, and my way of working requires conveyor belt manufacturing, lots of hands, and large spaces. So when I walk past an empty factory, I just drool.
What attitude are you looking to activate through your practice?
I don't know if it's because I've been in factories since I was little, but today I clearly have an impulse to impress with scale, precise workmanship, repeating motifs, and mosaics - in that sense, I'm a true child of communism. Maybe the attitude I'm looking for is togetherness.