Missirkov/Bogdanov’s work is centred around a monument that does not yet exist and which will be dedicated to the people who tried to escape from the Eastern Bloc through the Bulgarian border. Bulgaria has quite a few memorials dedicated to border guards, but not a single monument to honour the people who lost their lives trying to flee the Eastern Bloc across those same borders during the Cold War. Over the past three decades, this issue has been largely overlooked, with only a few short documentary films and studies devoted to it. The faces and names of these victims remain anonymous to this day.

“The Traveling Monument” brings together three elements: the first is a scale model of an imaginary monument that may one day appear near the Bulgarian-Greek border. It is a typical Rhodope stone bridge, firmly grounded on one “shore,” but disintegrating into floating fragments in the middle, disappearing into the air. The remaining elements of the installation are black-and-white infrared panoramic photographs of border areas where escape attempts were frequently made, complemented by short excerpts from archival propaganda films about border guards from the era of the People's Republic of Bulgaria, which place the photographs in historical context and provoke reflection on established historical narratives.

From the exhibition catalogue