09/06/2026
Applications are now open.
Few places in Bulgaria occupy such a visible place in the public imagination as Pernik. Shaped by mining, industry and social transformation, the city has accumulated a dense layer of images, narratives and cultural associations that continue to circulate far beyond its geographical boundaries.
A 7-day intensive field school structured around a cycle of learning, fieldwork and collective production. The historic Mining Directorate building in the heart of Pernik will serve as our base throughout the programme, providing a shared space for lectures, workshops and production hub.
From there, participants will engage with the city and its surroundings through collaborative fieldwork, exploring how industrial histories continue to shape contemporary life and how places marked by extraction remain active terrains of memory, energy transitions, social change and competing visions of the future.
Organised by the Visual Research Center for Perception and Society (Sofia) in partnership with the Visual Anthropology Center (Belgrade) one of Southeast Europe's most established independent platforms for visual anthropology and ethnographic filmmaking, bringing over a decade of experience through its School of Visual Anthropology and its distinctive model of regional collaborative fieldwork, research and audiovisual production.
The programme is intended for students, researchers, filmmakers, photographers, artists, cultural practitioners.
More information: https://perceptionandsociety.com/miningmemory/
