After the success of SOFIA STATION ’70 – the exhibition of archival photographs by Panayot Barnev -  DOT Sofia Art Collection will present the second photographic project from its series dedicated to the multigenre neighborhood around the Women’s Market and the process of exploring it. The exhibition SOFIA STATION: “MARKET DAYS” is a photo reportage by journalist Konstantin Valkov, who documents the present state of the area through his own perspective and artistic quest. The exhibition is curated by Konstantin Valkov’s long-time collaborator Marieta Tzenova, along with Veselina Sarieva, art director of DOT Sofia Art Collection. SOFIA STATION: “MARKET DAYS” will be on view at DOT Sofia from November 20 to December 4, with free admission.

We meet with Konstantin Valkov, who shares the story of the exhibition - through his own lens and perspective

Bill Murray, the Yakuza, and the Women’s Market

You ask me where to begin… Let’s begin in Tokyo. When Pancho and Vessy called me with the idea for this exhibition from DOT’s series of documentary photo stories, I had just returned from Tokyo. Why Tokyo? Years ago, when I watched Lost in Translation, I loved Tokyo so much that during my first trip I stayed in the very room where the film was shot. They even gave me the yukata (a men’s kimono) that Bill Murray wears in the movie. Since then, I’ve fallen in love with the film and with Japanese photography as a whole.

So in Tokyo I bought many photography books that all had something in common - as I also told Vesselina Sarieva - they were very quiet, calm, with pale colors, melancholic. I bought them from a photography bookstore where I asked the guy working there: “Can you give me the books you really like - and also the ones you don’t like at all?” I grabbed them quickly - Georgi Milkov was with me, and we were heading to a bathhouse I wanted to show him. Only yakuza went there - the Japanese mafia, or in other words: naked, tattooed men :) I bought the books and, once I returned, I looked through them slowly. I studied them. They all shared this slowness — nothing was happening in the photos, yet they were incredibly beautiful. After that I met with Vessy Sarieva and told her that this is how I imagined the photos from the Women’s Market - slow, melancholic. On the very first day I went out around seven in the evening, and of course I passed through the main street - because that’s where I had parked - the street with the barbershops, more than twenty of them. I photographed while talking to people. When I got home, I realized the photos had nothing to do with what I had promised Vessy. They were a bit more brutal and realistic, raw. That’s where it all began.

Lili Ivanova, the Sigma camera, and the Women’s Market

One day I got a call from Andrew Tuck, the editor-in-chief of Monocle, who said: “We want to photograph Lili Ivanova.” Since I know the magazine — I’ve even worked for Monocle — I didn’t understand why they needed Lili Ivanova. But he explained that they were launching a new section called “Icons”, in which they feature one iconic lady or gentleman from each country of interest. They told me that Alexander Gonzalez would come — he was currently in Australia, but would be in Istanbul, and wanted to come to shoot her. I went to Lili Ivanova, brought her a copy of Monocle so she could get familiar with the concept. She approved. We arranged everything with Gonzalez, I picked him up at the airport, got him settled, and we went to Lili’s place. She had cleared everything and told me she had prepared the space for the photographer to set up his lights and shoot for as long as he wished. I remember he asked her: “Have you been photographed recently?” and she replied: “Yes, yes, I have a calendar.” She literally skipped down to the basement in her high heels and came back up with the calendars. They featured photographs by Vasil Karkelanov — naturally, our friend looked at them and said: “Well, these will be a bit different.” He noticed a tapestry in her living room and asked her to stand in front of it — the tapestry was expressive enough as a background. He still hadn’t unpacked a tripod or lighting equipment. Suddenly he took a small black camera out of his pocket, clicked once, looked at the display, and said: “Ah, we’ve got it.” And he left. Lili Ivanova was in complete shock. I reassured her, telling her that he was a photographer from a serious publication. And eventually the photo appeared on a two-page spread in Monocle, her single portrait. I contacted Gonzalez because I urgently wanted that camera. He told me: “This camera is weird, it doesn’t really ‘shoot’ the way you expect — it’s very particular, don’t expect too much.” I was so impressed that I bought it and started using it — it has thousands of quirks, the battery dies quickly, and so on. But I became a fan of Sigma and its attempts to make strange cameras. And so, just before this exhibition, I met up with my friends Dimi Stoyanovich and Lachezar Avramov, who told me: “The Sigma representative is a friend of mine and he really wants you to shoot with the new Sigma, because it’s super strange. It’s even called BF — Beautiful Foolishness.” That’s practically “beautiful nonsense”! I said yes, because it’s a challenge to shoot something new with a new camera. We met in front of my home, he opened his trunk, handed it to me, and I went straight out to shoot. So, the provocations behind the exhibition were these: first, I’ve never associated this neighborhood with my childhood or personal path. I have no connection to this part of Sofia — which is good, because I’m completely unbiased. And second, there’s the challenge of not being overly technical, but simply using the tool to serve the purpose.

The Portrait, the Torero Joselito, and the Women’s Market

The truth is I started taking photographs because of Platon - the American photographer known for shooting politicians. At that time, I used to meet with Bulgarian politicians frequently, and one day Kalin Ruichev said to me: “You see these politicians every day - no one photographs them, there’s no memory of them. Why don’t you start shooting them?” Fortunately, I had the opportunity to photograph many of them, including two exhibitions - at the Palace and at the National Gallery. Everyone who shoots portraits has a strategy for getting close to people. My portrait strategy, if that’s of interest, is the bullfighting strategy - inspired by one of my favorite toreros, Joselito, who is absolutely ruthless. When you step into the arena, every bull is a new bull - none of them comes out twice. Each bull creates its own zone of safety, a perimeter where it feels protected from attack. The torero does the same - he surveys the territory. But there are toreros like Joselito who enter the ring and charge straight at the bull. And I think that’s the way to shoot a portrait - when the person stands in front of you, you initially cross into their personal space a little more, to unsettle them, and then you step back.

Back to the Women’s Market

There is something like mapping involved, yes. At first, I started walking through the same places at different times of day - seven in the evening, seven in the morning, one at noon, ten, four. The first thing I realized was that the scenes repeat at the same hours - meaning that if I go on Tuesday at 7 p.m. and on Friday at 7 p.m., I meet the same people, the same nuances, the same light…

Then I decided to test things with an insider - I found a woman who had lived here for many years, and I asked her to take me through her places. She led me to the butcher shop where she buys her meat, to another store she dislikes, to a third inner courtyard she wants removed, to a fourth house where an acquaintance of hers used to live, and so on. After that, I chose the church as my anchor point and simply talked to people, letting them tell me where they go and what they do. 

Whose market is this now?

Everything around the market is masculine; everything inside the market is feminine. The male energy is very strong. On the streets I walk, there is a definite presence of men and a lack of women. For example, the first woman I saw one day — after I had been photographing for hours, went into a restaurant, and even ended up in their kitchen — was the lady washing dishes. She was the first woman I had seen in two hours. Everywhere, men were dining, men were smoking on the corners, men were driving, men were parking.

We have a favorite shot — the woman with the Afghan hounds…

I remember she asked me to hold them for her, and of course I said I couldn’t, because I was in the middle of photographing people like her. She laughed…
This was during those so-called “market days,” when I tried again — once going with my wife, once alone, once with someone who frequents the market. But the shots were repetitive, because the vendors are always the same, the buyers too. On those days you meet many acquaintances and friends who come only for the market days, but it wasn’t very authentic — there were too many outsiders.

How does our rusty façade of the Women’s Market feel to you?

It is always a reason for conversation - a real topic of conversation. What’s interesting is that it’s a tremendous magnet - I now realize this as I invite guests to the exhibition. Usually, when you invite people to something you’re organizing, they say: “Yes, we’ll come because of you, because we’re friends,” or “Yes, the topic is interesting,” but the location is rarely the main attraction. Here, in every invitation, the responses seem to be tied to the place itself. The reason for conversation after the invitation is precisely this building. I’ve been wandering through and exploring the floors even before DOT Sofia opened. I’ve taken people here, impressed by what has been created. I would work here, I would live here. I really love the way things happen in this place.

What was your first encounter with the hotel?

I met Pancho regarding the building — I invited him for an interview, and I was deeply impressed by our conversation. He was so natural and calm; no one approached the meeting with an agenda or with the intent to gain something. We simply talked about life. It was a wonderful conversation that continued over time.

Has the market changed since the first SOFIA STATION? Back then, Barnev’s photo story took us to a bygone decade…

Sometimes I think absolutely nothing has changed. If you look at an old photograph of people riding the New York subway, reading newspapers, and compare it to a modern one, where the train car is newer, the clothes are different, and everyone is looking at their phones… you wonder whether anything has truly changed. And I wondered whether here nothing has changed either — and in fact everything is the same. The only difference is that the scale is a newer model — digital, for example. The conclusion from both extremes is this: nothing has changed, and everything has changed. Of course, people are very different today, but Yuchbunar has always been a magnetic center. There is something about this place that really won me over. The truth is I can’t stand places where, if the shop says it opens at nine, it opens at nine, and every car parks exactly in the designated space, and so on. That depresses me somehow. Here it’s the opposite — the shops are open, but some days they don’t open at all, and they don’t even announce it. This chaos, in my opinion, is a booming creative energy, and I love that. I can’t live in a place where the train leaves on the second. Tokyo is like that - but when you turn into a side street, you find incredible chaos… Here, at the Women’s Market, the energy is everywhere. The next level is having more creativity and more places like DOT Sofia.

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Opening of the exhibition

STOP SOFIA: “Market Days”
November 20, 18:00–20:00, in the presence of the author

Art tour with the author: November 30, 14:00
Finissage: December 4, 11:30-18:00, in the presence of the author