Informal Practice-Sharing
15 – 19 July 2026
IN THE FRAME of Nine Elephants
Outline
Over the past few years, the Center for Social Vision and the Nine Elephants Festival have been exploring the contradictions and complexities of urban life – its open structures, informal interactions, and non-discursive relations. Alongside the upcoming edition of Nine Elephants, we invite artists, curators, researchers, and cultural practitioners to join a three-day series of informal, peer-led practice sharing and conversations.
Working from Sofia, we have developed a transdisciplinary program that seeks new narratives shaped by spontaneous encounters, informal care networks, everyday activism, and unexpected urban affinities. This year, this has led us to focus on the idea of the spontaneous city. Sofia itself has been described as such (Stoyanova et al., Sofia Architectural Guide, 2013), shaped by accumulated historical layers rather than a single coherent vision. We observe that in post-socialist cities, spontaneity emerges through gaps in planning, fragmented governance, and overlapping regimes of ownership, producing spaces that are less controlled but also less predictable. In such contexts, spontaneity is not merely a lack of order; it can also be understood as a form of resilience – a way in which people, infrastructures, and environments continuously adapt and reconfigure. This prompts another question: how can people better recognize and act upon shared interests?
Conversely, in the neoliberal “smooth city” (as described by René Boer), urban space becomes increasingly controlled, optimized, and consumption-driven. This tendency can be observed in cities such as Amsterdam, Singapore, Copenhagen, and Dubai, where public space is increasingly shaped by logics of efficiency, branding, surveillance, and consumption. Here, spontaneity is reduced – and with it, the possibility for unexpected forms of togetherness. This raises the question: how can we reintroduce forms of spontaneity that enable connection, care, and collective experience?
We believe these conditions are not isolated. Together, we aim to explore how different contexts can learn from one another – how life unfolds in spaces that escape total design, what remains stable, and what must stay open or indeterminate.
This call is open to both emerging and established practitioners working across disciplines, including site-specific interventions, public art, social practice, performance, sound, architecture, cartography, and speculative methodologies. We ivite you to share your practices engaging with informal or self-organized urban processes, wild or emergent urban ecologies, soft transformations and micro-interventions, as well as situated and relational practices. We are particularly interested in experimental forms of collaboration and collective life, however any practices engaging with the social, spatial, and ecological dimensions of urban life are encouraged to apply.
The format of the forum is intentionally informal and process-oriented – a space to exchange methods, tools, and ways of working rather than finalized results.
The event is hosted by the Center for Social Vision as part of the Nine Elephants Festival. This year’s edition, titled Everything We Do, gives space to artistic and interdisciplinary practices in the urban environment and will take place from 9 to 19 July 2026 in Sofia and its surroundings, marking the festival’s third iteration.
Nine Elephants and the forum is financially supported by the National Culture Fund, Ministry of Culture and the Sofia Municipality.
Call for Proposals
We welcome proposals for:
- Presentations / performative lectures / Scores
- Workshops (inside/outside)
- Walks / Outside formats
Deadline
Applications are open from May 12 to June 12
We confirm participation on a rolling basis to allow for more flexible planning in the short period leading up to the event.
Support
While we are unfortunately unable to cover travel and accommodation costs, we are pleased to offer a limited number of mobility grants (up to 350 euro) based on criteria of strength and relevance of the proposal.
Please note that this grant is available only to those who do not receive other funding that covers part or all of their participation costs. Please indicate clearly if you require financial support, and only if your travel and accommodation are not covered otherwise.
We strongly encourage you to apply for available mobility funding, and we will gladly provide invitation letters to support your application. If you require a letter of invitation, please contact us by email, especially if mobility grants are available to you.
We will also help connect participants to share accommodation and reduce costs.
What to expect
The practice-sharing days will include peer-led sessions, possiblilty for encounters with artists and experts part of Nine Elephants as well as an opportunity to learn more about the Bulgarian art scene.
Preliminary schedule of the practice-sharing days:
- 15 July – evening registration and welcome
- 16–18 July – Presentations, workshops, outdoor formats
- 19 July – free program and grand finale of Nine Elephants
The festival opens on 9 July 2026, and you are very welcome to join for the full duration. For more info follow us on www.devetslona.art.
Please also check info on the first edition of our informal sharing days titled Imagining Cities here.
We look forward to your contributions – we’ve created a light application form for you to send us ideas and materials. Please let us know if you have any further comments or questions!
Photo: Image from “Recipes For the Future” by Isabela Markova, Eleonora Edreva and Elena Balabanska, presented at the third edition of the Nine Elephants Festival. Photo: Rosina Pencheva.