A publication by Maria Getova, Asya Petkova, and Ana-Maria Molnar, accompanying their project The Shiny Sexy: Heterotopias in Student Town, developed within the Urban Storytelling School and presented during the second edition of Nine Elephants in 2025.
The Shiny Sexy: Heterotopias in Student Town
Concept: Maria Getova, Asya Petkova, Ana-Maria Molnar
Format: Map with postcards
Year of publication: 2025
Published by: Urban Storytelling School and the Nine Elephants Festival
“The Shiny Sexy: Heterotopias in Student Town” is a walk-based research project that maps the layered everyday life of Student Town in Sofia through stories gathered from its inhabitants. The publication takes the form of a map accompanied by a series of postcards, each corresponding to a stop along the walk and offering visual, textual, and narrative fragments of the neighbourhood. Through interviews, observations, and collective storytelling, the project explores Student Town as a space of overlapping functions and identities—a contemporary heterotopia shaped by both its socialist origins and its present-day transformations. From dormitories and kindergartens to nightclubs, shops, and informal meeting points, the publication traces the contrasts and proximities that define the area.
The project is part of the Urban Storytelling School, an Erasmus+ partnership program by the Center for Social Vision (Sofia) and C*SPACE (Berlin), which uses storytelling as a participatory tool to engage young people in shaping and reimagining their urban environments.
Asya Petkova is an architect and urbanist with a Master’s from Politecnico di Milano (2024) and a Bachelor’s from the Technical University of Vienna (2022), focusing on space, narrative, local identity, and participatory design.
Ana-Maria Molnar is a photographer based in London and Bulgaria with a BA in Press and Editorial Photography from Falmouth University and training at the VII Photo Academy in Sarajevo, creating long-term documentary projects and theme-based series, influenced by both her international travels and everyday life.
Maria Getova has a background in Cultural Studies and holds a Master’s in Arts and Contemporary Culture (20th–21st Century) from Sofia University. She is a poet, author of critical texts, and cultural manager, and in 2023 published her debut poetry book Half-Life.
More information on the project here