Share
Visitors sitting on stools and chairs around a coffee table in a replicated living room for a multimedia exhibition.

The Neighbours: Forms of Trauma (1945-1989)

A dark living room with red lighting. A large, bright screen sits on the left side of the room.
The Neighbours multimedia installation, University of Toronto, September 2023. 2024 Heritage Toronto Public History Award nominee. Image by Krasimira Butseva.

The Neighbours multimedia installation, University of Toronto, September 2023. 2024 Heritage Toronto Public History Award nominee. Image by Krasimira Butseva.

Visitors sitting on stools and chairs around a coffee table in a replicated living room for a multimedia exhibition.
Visitors at The Neighbours multimedia installation, University of Toronto, September 2023. 2024 Heritage Toronto Public History Award nominee. Image by Krasimira Butseva.

Visitors at The Neighbours multimedia installation, University of Toronto, September 2023. 2024 Heritage Toronto Public History Award nominee. Image by Krasimira Butseva.

Dark room illuminated by a television on the left, candles on the bookshelf and a sewing machine table in the middle, and a projected screen with a view of a lake on the right.
The Neighbours multimedia installation, University of Toronto, September 2023. 2024 Heritage Toronto Public History Award nominee. Image by Krasimira Butseva.

The Neighbours multimedia installation, University of Toronto, September 2023. 2024 Heritage Toronto Public History Award nominee. Image by Krasimira Butseva.

Winner: 2024 People’s Choice Award

Project Creators: Lilia Topouzova, Julian Chehirian, Krasimira Butseva

Project Website 

Date of Release: September 25, 2023

The Neighbours multimedia installation was showcased at the University of Toronto between September 25-29, 2023. This public history project blends historical scholarship and art to explore the aftermath of political violence within Toronto’s diasporic context.

The installation is built upon 40 oral history interviews with survivors of the Bulgarian gulag (1945-1987). An office was transformed into the home of a survivor, incorporating objects, video, and sound to evoke the space where the interviews occurred. The installation included fragments from the interviews, field recordings, and footage from the former sites of violence. The Neighbours adopts a participatory model, inviting audiences to enter, inhabit the space, and bear witness to the survivors’ experiences. Through the interplay of different media, artifacts recovered the camps, second-hand stores in Toronto, and immigrant homes, the project juxtaposed the camps’ material world with the domestic space, illustrating how trauma permeates daily life across borders and time.


Additional Project Members: 

Team Members:
Vasil Vladimirov (curator)
Annie Boss
Catherine Lukits
Thomas Law
Ioana Zamfir 
Lev Pavlenko
Sophie Sacilotto
Nataliya Machalina
David Chobotov
Kate Gonchar
Glady Lou
Peter Steen
Kristina Anguelakieva
Kate Maddalena
Ayberk Dizdarla