The third edition of Nine Elephants – a festival for art in the urban environment, takes place from 9 to 19 July.
The new edition of the festival, titled “Everything We Do,” connects the city to our actions—from everyday activities and micro-gestures, through the city as a place of work and learning, to the better things we could do but, for some reason, do not. Between habit and radical change, between economic labor and invisible care, unfolds a broad ecology of interactions that shape the city as it is today, while also revealing what it could become.
For the third consecutive year, artists, researchers and conductors, as well as concretes, bakers and bees set out from the city centre toward its many peripheries. Their projects raise questions about invisible labour in urban cultural centres as a form of sustaining community; about the desire to start life anew by moving one village to another place; about the queue outside the shop as a form of play, and rest as a form of work.
This year’s edition includes more than 20 artistic projects, developed in partnership with two of the capital’s districts, as well as several cultural organizations and institutions. Once again, the festival opens its programme to international participation, with KADIST serving as its main international partner this year, one of the leading contemporary art organizations with an important collection of video and art films.
The festival continues its commitment to decentralization by developing artistic projects outside the central areas of Sofia and fostering long-term interactions with local communities. In 2026, the programme reaches the neighborhoods of Fondovi Zhilihta, Iztok, Dragalevtsi, and Krasna Vada, as well as Robov Dol Park, and the villages of Businci and Zheleznitsa. Within the festival, the international peer-to-peer forum “Spontaneous Cities” — Spontaneous Cities — also takes place, creating a space for the exchange of experiences and practices in the field of urban interventions and research.
Among the main events in this year’s programme, the festival opens with Echo Location, an exhibition by Vlatka Horvat at Swimming Pool. On the first Friday evening, Sofia Night Performance returns under the title “Choreographies of Labour”, featuring performances, theatrical and artistic interventions, workshops, and poetry. In the second week, we invite you to Opera Ecologica at the Botanical Garden of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences on the Ring Road. The festival opens with Echo Location, an exhibition by Vlatka Horavt at Swimming pool. The finale takes us to the Fondovi Zhilihta neighbourhood, where the New Choir from Vienna sings the memory of the urban planning scheme.
