For its first full season, from May to October 2017, FLUCA will open with a weekly program, from Thursday to Sunday, offering various activities and events – exhibitions, screenings, concerts, talks, workshops, performances, live shows – with artistic modules such as:
- Digital art and new technologies
- Street art
- Urban design
- Music
- Films
- Theater and dance
- Literature
More than 150 events, 40 music nights, 20 movie screenings, artist talks, discussions, workshops all happening on a stage open to new ideas and audiences.
FLUCA program 2017 was curated by Ursula Maria Probst, Walter Seidl and Boris Kostadinov.
The glittering cargo container FLUCA, presented in 2017 on its stage artistic projects from Bulgaria, Austria and abroad. The FLUCA program started in May and continued until the end of September, with the highlights for the season being Plamen Deyanoff's solo exhibition curated by Boris Kostadinov, the project “Stretching the Boundaries” with Nicole Six / Paul Petritsch and Sabine Bitter / Helmut Weber, curated by Walter Seidl and the group project “Attention! Promised Place - Contesting Common Grounds”, curated by Ursula Maria Probst.
FLUCA also showed literary events with Georgi Gospodinov and Teodor Ushev (as part of the Plovdiv Reads Festival), presentations with the publisher Manol Peykov, the illustrator Romina Beneventi, the author Yana Boukova, the Austrian writer Peter Simon Altman, the Israeli poet Amir Or and others. The FLUCA screenings were part of the weekly summer program in Plovdiv, featuring a special selection of Spanish-language and German-language films provided by Cervantes Institute and Goethe Institute Bulgaria. The FLUCA scene for the second season was also a favorite place for DJ parties, informal meetings, discussions, performances and more.
Impressions on FLUCA – season 2016
FLUCA is a strange shining box. FLUCA is cargo, i.e. it transports. FLUCA is a container, i.e. it contains. FLUCA is open. FLUCA emits and receives. FLUCA is a stage and a screen. FLUCA is full of the eyes, ears and voices of the viewers. FLUCA is something you would like to have at home, if it wasn’t so big.
Pravdoliub Ivanov
My impressions? They are numerous and all very positive! They are best summarized with a single word: pure-envy-for-the-project-in-Plovdiv! I think this is an extremely efficient, effective, yet unobtrusive form of artistic presence in public space. The FLUCA project is marked by an elegant and beautifully functional design of the “stage”. Its presence in the city is simple yet full of impact while its program is to be envied, what else I can say… It looks fabulous and I would imagine the production cost is not so high. And the audience – let’s hope it takes full advantage of this offer which makes life fun and meaningful!
Luchezar Boyadjiev
FLUCA is an extraterrestrial messenger perching somewhat to one side in a small Plovdivian street. Its mirror surface is designed to reflect the movements in its environment, drawing them in to its womb for unexpected encounters. FLUCA is neutral and friendly to all the arts – the visual arts, dance, theater, film, architecture and music. A place for spontaneous interdisciplinary conversation. A place that works. The mirror surface both absorbs as well as reflects ideas, meanings and emotions.
Maria Vassileva
FLUCA is a very good project. Over a short period of time, the pavilion has hosted a number of incredible events and presentations – encounters that are much needed for artists in Bulgaria. The country has few organizations with international know-how and experience and even if all of them were open to regular exchange with one another, interaction with artists from other countries is critically important. We believe that this is FLUCA’s most important function. Its original, effective and functional design is also capable of educating state, local and non-governmental organizations in Bulgaria about the potential of braver projects and artistic solutions. With the example of the Austrian Cultural Pavilion in Plovdiv, the chances of obtaining permission and funding for such projects in the future are much greater.
Destructive Creation
FLUCA – austrian cultural pavilion is produced and supported by Austrian Embassy in Bulgaria and The Austrian Federal Chancellery