FIREFLIES

Performance with church candles and a lighter. 2024.

Part of a diptych of performances called In the Bones, the first by Kyril Buhowski and the second by Georgi Pavlov. Presented at SPORNO Festival, curated by Voin de Voin & Michaela Lakova, Doza Gallery, Sofia.

Fireflies explores the idea of transgenerational trauma and the ways we carry family secrets in our bodies, unknowingly perpetuating the horrors of the past. The work is based on the true story of one of the artists great grandmothers, about whom he discovered years after her death that, when she was a young woman, she had been raped. In order to avoid “bringing shame to the family”, she had been forced by her parents to marry her rapist, who then became the artists great grandfather.

In the performance, the artist shares his grandmother's story in detail with the audience, while giving them church candles and lighting them. He then takes back the candles and puts out the flames in his torso, arms, and tongue.

By extinguishing the fireflies (or the illusions) of childhood, the artist attempts to understand and communicate his relative’s pain, although he realises that ultimately this is impossible.