Detritus photo series 2016-2023
digital photography / selected
Detritus, 2021 / photobook, single edition
68 pages, soft covers, 20 x 24 x 0.7 сm
Paper: Pergraphica Natural, Print: Photosynthesis, 2021
Content: 35 color photographs, text (selected interviews)
An adaptation of the main Detritus project 2016-2023
Selected and printed out via „DIY PHOTOBOOK“ (2021),
part of Synthesis Gallery Book collection (Sofia, BG)
Detritus, photobook maquette 2020
selection of 40 photographs, selected interviews and author’s texts
60 pp, 8 double foldings, 2020
digital print, size 11 x 15 x 7 cm
Detritus project research materials / Institutional documents and private archives
Images:
(1) Eastern facade, Detritus photo series, 2021
(2) Southern facade, private family archives, 1970s
(3) Yonov Inn files, National Institute of Immovable Cultural Heritage – Bulgaria
(4) 5th Great National Assembly – Bulgaria, group portrait, Veliko Tarnovo, 1911 / Almanac of the Bulgarian Constitution, National library – Bulgarian History Archive
The owners of the Non-Yonon Inn – V. Tarnovo and its inhabitants.
Images:
(2) Southern facade, private family archives, 1970s
(4-5-6) Gospodin Todorov – first known owner of the house from 1918 until 1949. Gospodin Todorov is recognized on the historical photograph from 5th Great National Assembly – Bulgaria
(7) The Old photogrgraphy cartoteque at National Library – Bulgarian History Archive
(8) The New photogrgraphy cartoteque – after the recognition of Gospodin Todorov as minister in the 5th Great National Assembly – Bulgaria, 1911 / Bulgarian History Archive
Detritus 2016-2024
The project is developed as a visual study of a given space in personal and public memory. It is a long-term artist run project about “Yonov inn” – a monument, registrated by National Institute of Immovable Cultural Heritage, and already architectural ruin in the old town of Veliko Tarnovo, Bulgaria.
The Detritus project goes in forms of a photobook, history-diving articles, architectural studies, anthropologycal interviews, and personal documentary photography series reflecting the physical place itself. The project title “detritus” comes from Latin – naming organic matter that occurs when organisms die or as a result of their vital activity. Includes all inanimate, decaying tissues, organisms, and their excrement.
The project goes through several stages in research taking various forms. It has started as a documental photography series about personal experience in 2016. Since then, the house is regularly visited, while going into conversations with its inhabitants. The visual diary produced over the period is following interior dynamics of the space. Until 2023 “detritus” project has expanded as a visual archive dealing with historical site studies and document investigations, interviews with legal or illegal dwellers, former residents and owners from 19th and 20th century. It has developed in regular conversations with architects and local historians. Further development evokes cultural heritage and historical matters. “Yonov inn” is examined in a broader scope of the 19th century history of Tarnovo inns. The developed studies and site research are tracing its transformation of a significant object and its controversial projection as 21st century’s mythological concept “Yonov inn”. The study confronts with the “official myth” and “historical fact” issues.
About Yonov Inn [Йонов хан] – Veliko Tarnovo
A popular 19th-century guest house in Veliko Tarnovo Old Town, named to its presupposed owner Atanas Yoonoolu. The house is officially registered by the National Institute of Immovable Cultural Heritage – Bulgaria, official status – “ensemble importance” (acct. 2023). It is undated as architectural monument, it has solid grounds on 300 square meters terrain, three floors and inner garden. The house is a private property, for a period of time is state-owned, after restituted and since 1992 is shifting owners, untill 2016. Current condition: ruin, dangerous.
Project Contributions
Detritus research project is recognized for its historical contributions to the 19th-century issue of “Yonov Inn” in Tarnovo Old Town. Among the general project contributions are: Revealing new historical data about the house and its owners, arguing affiliations of Yonov Inn in validation of the National Institute of Immovable Cultural Heritage; Official visual recognition of a Fifth Great Assembly (1911) minister in the photo archives at the National library – Bulgarian History Archive; Locating two of the Austrian painter and engineer Josef Obrebauer watercolor works of the 19th-century Tarnovo cityscape.
Authorizations and consultants / 2023
In 2023, Detritus research project goes under authorization by Lubomir Markov and Silvia Yordanova. Historical and topographic research consultants for 2023 are Svetla Atanasova, PhD, Chief Curator at Regional History Museum Veliko Tarnovo, Department “History of Bulgaria XV-XIX Century”, and architect Donka Koleva, Chief Expert in “Culture, Tourism and International Activities” Department at the Municipality of V. Tarnovo. The ongoing research materials and results are processed for publications.
Publications and conference reports
> 2023 – Fendulova, Y. The contemporary and the historical Ionov Inn – tree main problems [Йоновият хан във Велико Търново – историческо и съвременно понятие за обекта в оптиката на артистичен проект detritus на Яница Фендулова], presented as report at Visual Studies International Scientific Conference, Veliko Tarnovo University, Oct. 20-21, 2023
Abstract: The article reports about the missing historization of Ionov Inn. Despite the officially stated in some published historical studies about 19th century Veliko Tarnovo that is “one of the most important inns in the city”, till now the object has not been a focus for larger study development as a local specific. The report presents selected research ma-terials about Ionov inn: tree publications one from 1872 (by Hristo Botev), and other two from 1960s and 1980s. A contemporary architectural restauration project from 2019 is considered. A conclusion is made differencing two architectural facilities: one as “historical myth” and second as historical fact and its location problematics. /// Keywords: artist project, visual studies, historical studies, Ionov inn, Veliko Tarnovo
> 2024 – Fendulova, Y. „Ionov Inn“ – Veliko Tarnovo in the perspective of “detritus” visual study. Biographical notes about the building’s owners from XX and XXI century: Gospodin Todorov and Edmund Beck“, presented as report at “From sensorial to visual” [От сетивното към визуалното] Scientific Conference, Veliko Tarnovo University, 25.11. 2023
Abstract: The article presents a fragment of a larger study on “Ionov inn, Veliko Tarnovo”, developed in the context of an initial visual study called “detritus” (2016-2023) run by the author (Yanitsa Fendulova, visual artist and researcher). The focal point of the presented issues is a building at 63 “Opalchenska” Street in Veliko Tarnovo. Two biographical refer-ences are presented in relation: Edmund Beck (1934-2022) and Gospodin Todorov Tendjerkov (1864-1932). The main points of contribution are outlined: presenting data from the notarial deed of ownership (1931) and the results of the developed study in connection with the Fifth Great National Assembly archive photography (1911). /// Keywords: artist project, visual studies, historical studies, biography, Ionov inn, Veliko Tar-novo, Edmund Beck, Gospodin Todorov, Samovodene
