Photo by: Martin Karnoslki
Several of our seminal research papers focus on community leadership and implicit cultural policy—the often-unseen policies and practices that shape the values binding communities together. We recommend starting your journey with one of our most widely referenced papers:
Implicit Cultural Policy – The Role of Social Clubs in Communities
Authors Ruth Cherrington and Petya Koleva offer a comparative study of areas of policy that are not explicitly labelled as “culture”, but nevertheless have a significant impact on cultural life and community development.
The chitalishte model was later adopted and promoted through top-down policies across Europe, in the Socialist states, and in Latin America and Asia, where it contributed to the creation of cultural houses.
At the dawn of the 20th century, however, these two phenomena emerged from citizen-led action promoting political and cultural rights. They were built through citizen donations and voluntary work and, despite the pressures of the 21st century, many continue to exist today.
Their locations also reflect the inclusive principles of the citizen initiatives that created them. The implicit choice behind these community networks was to foster social cohesion across educational and social backgrounds, age, gender and economic barriers.
The post-COVID era has encouraged many people to reconsider how this community power can be regained through diverse forms of cultural and nature-based action and resilience-building.
You can check our training tools for the Vitality project here.
“The City as Dialogue” – Gabrovo, Bulgaria
Over the last decades, Gabrovo has moved from being a shrinking city towards becoming a city of cultural transformation.
Authors Mariana Prodanova and Petya Koleva identify three reasons for this transformation in The City as Dialogue.
Gabrovo entered the competition for the title of European Capital of Culture (ECoC) as one of the Bulgarian cities competing for the title in 2019, and again in 2025.
A Capital at Crossroads: Sofia, Bulgaria
Petya Koleva & Elisa Calosi, Designing Inclusion, Pratt Institute, New York, 2017
In June 2011, the art group Destructive Creation transformed one of the many monuments dedicated to the Russian army in Bulgaria’s culturally rich capital.
The inscription “Keep up with the times” was placed at the feet of soldiers transformed into comic characters, including Santa Claus and the Joker.
This subversive public intervention offered an ironic perspective on the changes affecting Bulgaria, including globalisation and the growing influence of the neoliberal economy.
Today, a quarter of a century after the fall of the Berlin Wall and the consequent end of the socialist era, the need to keep pace with change and remain aware of how global developments affect local contexts remains highly relevant.