Bulgarian Artwork Invites Parisians to Sit on Cyrillic Letters

An installation of seven benches carved in the form of Bulgarian Cyrillic letters, called "The Bulgarian Letters", has been erected near the banks of the Seine in Paris.

The project launched by the recently appointed director of the Bulgarian Cultural Institute in Paris, Desislava Bineva, will remain in place until September and aims to introduce Parisians and others to lesser known elements of Bulgarian culture and art.

The benches, shaped like the letters Б, Ж, З, Ц, Ч, Щ and Ъ, were designed and produced by a team of architects and painters from the Read Sofia Foundation.

They are accompanied with print copies of poems in French and Bulgarian written by contemporary Bulgarian authors, including Georgi Gospodinov, Sylvia Chorleva and Nadezhda Radulova.

"There is an enclosed version of each poem in Cyrillic, which is, in fact, the third official alphabet in Europe and represents us as a state," Bineva told Svobodna Evropa, the Bulgarian branch of RFL/RL.

"Very often people in Bulgaria carry the complex of the small culture. Yes, it is a fact that we are not well established on the international cultural scene, but despite that I think we have exceptional artists and very interesting projects that could shape our image as a small but extremely interesting country," she added.

Bineva said she expected over 600,000 people to view the installation over the next three months.

Photo: Boris Svetozarov.

Photo: Boris Svetozarov.

Photo: Boris Svetozarov.

Photo: Boris Svetozarov.

Photo: Boris Svetozarov.

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