site.btaArt Project Documents Drinking Water Fountains along Bulgarian-Turkish Border

The art research project "Transnational Monuments: The Search for Universal Sacredness" by Cedric Van Parys, founder of the Rotterdam and Sofia-based studio Office CCXD, reconsiders the image of traditional drinking water fountains found along the Bulgarian-Turkish border as potential transnational and unifying monuments. Cedric Van Parys' solo exhibition will be unveiled at Sofia's +359 Gallery on April 29. 

For about 10 months,  Cedric Van Parys has been operating from Sofia as artist in residence at +359 Gallery, using it as a base to investigate the Bulgarian-Turkish borderland in search of a new understanding of what monuments could be.  He has since documented, mapped, and photographed more than 100 drinking water fountains on both sides of the border. This data is now being translated into a series of sculptural/infrastructural works to explore what a future transnational monument could be, with the final works to be on display at +359 Gallery as of Friday.

"Drinking water foundations (“cheshma” in Bulgarian or "cesme" in Turkish) can be found in the fields, forests, villages, and as sanctuaries along the roads on either side of the border in equal density, always negotiating a careful relationship with the landscape. Surprisingly similar in shape, atmosphere, materiality, spirituality, and use of landscape, the cheshma is not only a mystical contemporary Bulgarian-Turkish phenomenon but can be considered one of the most inclusive, social, and international monu­ments of our time," the artist says.

Office CCXD (Context/Concept/Exploration/Development) is a practice operating at the intersection of architecture and the visual arts. The studio's work is based on analytical research and concerned with the relation between monuments, public space, symbols, rituals and aesthetics.