S O F T (Acts of Tenderness)
A deck of 30 cards, in Bulgarian and English
Author: Christoph Szalay
Design: Andrea Popyordanova
Year of publication: 2023
Publisher: Blue Cube Foundation – Center for Social Vision
Print run: 300 copies
Price: 20 BGN
We usually associate card games with shared fun and leisure time, but this game creates a space filled with questions and secrets, with desires and fears, with honesty and curiosity—or, as one card asks: “If you were in a karaoke bar, which song would you sing?”
This is how S O F T (Acts of Tenderness) came to be—a deck of 30 cards in three categories: Questions, Invitations, and Poetic Notes. From here on, there are no fixed rules—everyone is free to invent their own as the game unfolds. For us, the cards offer a gentle and playful starting point for conversation—with both friends and strangers.
Christoph Szalay (1987, Graz) is a poet—and formerly, a professional skier. He studied German philology in Graz and Art in Context at the University of the Arts in Berlin (UdK Berlin). His texts often transcend the boundaries of literature, entering the realms of visual poetry and performance. Alongside Fotini Lazaridou-Hatzigoga, Christoph was part of the first edition of Library of Our Encounters at Swimming Pool in 2020.
The project was realized with the support of Culture Moves Europe, a programme of the European Union. The views expressed herein do not reflect and should not be taken as the official position of the European Union.
The project is part of the public program “Constitutions” by the Center for Social Vision in 2023, made possible with the financial support of a One-Year Grant from the National Culture Fund of Bulgaria.