DISSECTION OF THE MEMORIES

Nevertheless, for the generation that began their career development alongside the democratic changes, the visual codes Cholakov uses in these works evoke a shared emotion for a time when our parents were young, our friends were full of energy and unconventional ideas about the future, and the focus of life was not on solving daily problems, but on shaping individual identities with unique value systems. Very few of the memories in Kiril Cholakov’s drawings and canvases can be directly attributed to the political content of the socialist years. Those born during that era will recognize it in the interiors and exteriors, the vehicles, the oppressive atmosphere of small communities—as seen in the fading silhouettes of the inhabitants of the village of Izvor—and in the outdated urban landscape of Sofia’s Geo Milev district. For Kiril Cholakov, these two places encapsulate the memory of Bulgaria and were selected as locations for future exhibitions under the project.

The urge to materialize the images of his consciousness—as a symbolic farewell to what was left in the past—arose in Italy, where Kiril Cholakov has lived since 1997. The first texts outlining the vanishing images were written in Italian, the language itself marking a boundary between two periods of his life: one in Bulgaria, and one in Italy. The 1990s, or the beginning of Bulgaria’s democratic transition, were marked by the first major wave of immigration—primarily young, well-educated individuals (many from artistic circles), with clear aspirations for their future. Their distant communication with family and friends laid the foundation for a nostalgic vision of unforgettable, shared moments in an idealized world they left behind—often at great personal cost. How do the memories of this generation align with the way historians now summarize the era of state socialism—a period marked by prohibitions, repression, deprivation, restricted foreign travel, and the absence of a normal information environment at all levels? The first Dissection of Memories exhibition in the village of Izvor (2014) was a symbolic gesture—staged in the old memorial service building at the cemetery. We arranged the drawings from the first series among tables covered with oilcloths, shovels,gravediggers’ tools, and plastic cups filled with salt and wine left from meals commemorating the dead— the only present were Kiril’s family and close friends. We hung the drawings for several hours, despite the municipal administration’s refusal to grant permission to use the space as a temporary exhibition hall. In this symbolic anteroom between life and death, we came together through the stories Kiril told, and accepted their sharing as part of our collective biography. At the Stubel Gallery exhibition (2017)—in a building constructed on the site of a former playground in the neighborhood where he grew up—Kiril complemented the drawings with paintings capturing memories of his early childhood. These works were based on black-and-white family photographs. The first response they provoked was not a critique of artistic skill, but rather a realization: real characters were now visible. Their faces pierced the veil of elapsed time that, in the earlier exhibition, had blurred individual features and lent the imagery a diffused, mysterious quality. What disappeared was the scene-setting—the socialist architecture typical of the period, the Russian Father Frost (a stand-in for Santa Claus and the central figure in New Year’s school celebrations), and the carefully selectedlandscapes used as backdrops in family vacation photos. In short, the specificcontext in which each photograph was taken had faded. The focus of all these works is the little boy—and the emotions he experiences in his relationships with his father, his mother, his first love… According to the French sociologist Maurice Halbwachs, cultural forms are those that transform and preserve complex mental processes through repetitive social practices. Human memory never reproduces an event in the same way; different material sources are needed for objective documentation—archives,photographs, films, and so on—creating a social framework that places individual memory within the context of collective knowledge acquired through communication. Halbwachs introduced the concept of collective memory—the idea that individuals can remember and retain things only through their interaction with others. Dissection of Memories is a nostalgic panorama of a reality seemingly frozen at the boundary between life and death—symbolizing the transition between two worlds, whether political systems, geographic states, or life and death itself. The retrospective gaze—filtered through a new cultural identity, a new family and social environment, and a new language—is akin to looking through a camera obscura. Real images emerge on paper because the beam of memory—having passed through the dark chamber of emotion and early social experience—projects only those images that have been permanently engraved in our minds. French historian Pierre Nora argues that analyzing collective memory should be a central task of contemporary historical science: “The pluralization of collective memory, and especially its pressure on history, results in a clear division between memoryand history, and the recognition of memory as a specific issue.” According to Nora, a truly “new” history must follow the traces of multiple collective memories and find their places: “It is about going to the places—literally— where a society (be it a nation, family, ethnicity, or political group) has entrusted its memories for preservation or reinvents them as essential to its identity: topographical locations such as archives, libraries, and museums; memorial sites like cemeteries and monuments; symbolic places like commemorations, pilgrimages, anniversaries, or emblems; functional places such as textbooks, autobiographies, or community associations. Each of these materials has its own history.”

According to a sociological survey conducted in Bulgaria, 94% of young people (aged 16–30) said they knew almost nothing about the period before 1989. For 40% of them, the fall of the Berlin Wall rings no bell, and they have no idea what happened 28 years ago. A third of them do not even know that the transition to democracy in Eastern Europe began in 1989. For this generation, Cholakov’s series of drawings capturing personal memories may resemble nothing more than a visual diary—an assortment of stories detached from a specific historical context, just another fragment in the kaleidoscopic stream of content found online. In this sense, Dissection of Memories illustrates how personal memory functions within collective existence in the field of art. It is impossible to fully strip memory of the emotion tied to the unique facts of each life, regardless of technical precision or emotional restraint. Yet, every narrative that emerges from such circumstances becomes part of a larger historical mosaic—composed of countless stories, each differing in content and form. Systematizing them can provide a credible image of the past.
Curated by Irina Batkova