The Great Excursion

Thursday 3rd of June sees the launch of ‘The Great Excursion’ by Bulgarian artist, Raycho Stanev.  From 6pm we’re hosting a critical debate looking at issues of race, nationality and, ultimately, DNA – we’ve got a great panel of people for the talk, so hopefully it should get nice and ‘heated’.  After the debate we’ll be tucking into some scrummy Bulgarian food, and for the more adventurous, sampling some lovely rakia (Bulgarian ‘whiskey’ – but perhaps the translation should be ‘rocket fuel’?) and maybe getting down to some Bulgarian tunes.

The exhibition continues, Tuesday to Saturday, until the 19th, from 1pm until 7pm (so you can pop in after work).  It is a very moving, interactive installation which looks at a period in 1989 when almost half a million Bulgarian Turks were expelled to Turkey, in what the Bulgarian government termed ‘an excursion’.  Unlike most excursions, however, the people going on the ‘day trip’ were not to return.  In tough times like these we face now, with right wing politics rearing its ugly head, this is a timely and relevant piece of work about a shameful chapter in recent European history.

See you at the Edge…