SEOUL

Dagmar Ost Ansk Director

Not surprisingly, the past six months in the Czech Centre Sofia were extremely intense. One of the priorities of all of our activities was to leave a Czech footprint in the territory. The Czech Presidency of the Council of the EU is an exceptional opportunity that Czechia had for the second time in its history after 13 years. The Czech Centre Sofia managed to involve 13 business partners who supported the selected projects financially and materially. In this respect, important cooperation was established with the Embassy of the Czech Republic in Sofia.

Within the framework of the Czech Presidency 2022, we implemented our own projects and presented the following three major ones: “Literature Night”, which was started in Bulgaria by the Czech Centre 12 years ago, “Street Meets (Mural) Art”, which involved cooperation with the artist Tomáš Starý and “The Václav Havel European Dialogues”. Our own projects included the following: international human rights festival “Sofia DocuMental”, “CLAYPAUSE” (an exhibition of works by the ceramist and designer Roman Šedina), “The Story of the Vase” (the final works of the students of the Department of Ceramics and Porcelain, Academy of Arts, Architecture and Design in Prague under the leadership of Milan Pekař and Tereza Sluková), “Out of the Black Shadow” (an exhibition of works by Lenka Klodová and curator Vjera Borozan, Museum of Contemporary Art in Hradec Králové), “Christmas Design?!” (an exhibition of works by the curator Adéla Pomothy from the North Bohemian Museum in Liberec in cooperation with the Liberec Region) and the exhibition “Christmas Treasure” by the curators Dagmar Havlíčková and Petr Nový from the Museum of Glass and Jewellery in Jablonec nad Nisou).

The “Czech Day” event was a novelty in our programme – a one-day open air event which took place in the central park of Sofia. Despite the stormy afternoon, the event was a great success. Throughout the whole period of the Presidency, we focused on Ukraine. We organized debates, exhibitions and film screenings in cooperation with the Embassy of Ukraine in Bulgaria.

The last half-year was certainly the most intense period in my five-year mandate. We wanted to “show off in the territory” and at the same time were happy about how the reputation of Czechia was spread across Bulgaria.