Ever since 1989, the year communism fell, the Bulgarian population has been in decline. Over the span of 26 years the country has gone from a population of 9 million to something closer to 7 million. Even now, the population shrinks by some 60.000 every year.
The most visible consequence of the depopulation are the closed schools. As the population dwindles, there are less and less children to fill the schools. Every year dozens of schools close their doors as education gets centralised in the bigger towns.
The title of this series is “uchilishte”, or “school” in Bulgarian. This series aims to document the disappearing Bulgarian schools as a eulogy to a fading nation. I want to capture the sadness and stillness of these places and evoke memories of ones own youth. These buildings were once the cradle of the country’s future, but now they’re nothing but empty and neglected monuments to better times. [Official Website]
