The Educational programme “Without Distance” 2025 is part of the project „Life Long Burning – Future Lost and Found (LLB 3) and is realized with the financial support of the Creative Europe Programme of the European Union, National Culture Fund, programme “Creative Europe”, and in partnership with Goethe-Institut Bulgarien.
The lecture explores the process of constructing an artistic identity based on the idea of resistance, focusing the attention on the strengths, successes, paradoxes, contradictions, insecurities and vulnerabilities that accompany the process of building such an identity.
Javor Gardev, PhD, was born in Sofia in 1972. He graduated from the National Lyceum for Ancient Languages and Cultures “St. Constantine-Cyril The Philosopher”. He holds a Master’s degree in Philosophy (MPhil) from Sofia University “St. Kliment Ohridski”, a Master of Fine Arts (MFA) degree in Directing from the National Academy of Theatre and Film Arts in Sofia and a PhD in Art Studies from the Department of Theatre and Cinema Studies” of the New Bulgarian University. He is the author of the interdisciplinary dissertation bridging philosophy, social sciences and theater studies “Power, Sovereignty and Directing. Studies on Performative Power, Interpretive Freedom and Artistic Autonomy”. A recipient of the Fulbright Award, thanks to which he conducted the study, which became the core of his dissertation at Northwestern University’s School of Communication in the United States.
Javor Gardev has been awarded many theatre and film awards and has staged over fifty theatrical performances, several of which were international co-productions. His feature film debut Zift (2008) was part of the selections of fifty-four international film festivals and won nineteen domestic and international awards and special mentions. Javor Gardev also carries out artistic actions and performances, including the video-mystification “Visual Police”, as well as radiophonic projects, among which is his production The Atoll, which received the Grand Prix Europe for Best European Radio Drama in Berlin. Javor Gardev is a director at Ivan Vazov National Theatre and is a member of the European Film Academy.
“Without Distance” is the educational platform of “Antistatic” festival, which aim is to stimulate professional skills in the field of contemporary dance and performance, meetings and contacts between colleagues, as well as to provoke artists to new meanings and expression.
The content of the platform is a reflection of the theme of the festival and in 2025 completely immerses in different aspects of resistance, following the motto “Signs of Resistance”.