On November 28, 2023 (Tuesday) at 17:30 at the Regional Ethnographic Museum - Plovdiv, the exhibition "In Search of Sound" will be opened.

The organizers are the National Center for Alternative Communication "We Hear You", in cooperation with ethnophotographer Asen Velikov. Together, they realized a series of five separate musical photo shoots, unique for Bulgaria, with the participation of non-professional models with various hearing deficits and live music by professional performers of Bulgarian folklore.

The photos were taken in five picturesque places around the country for 6 months: with the Rhodope bagpipe in Koprivshtitsa, with the kaval in Old Plovdiv, with the gadulka in the village of Krushovitsa, commune. Elin Pelin, with the vestibule in the village of Svezhen, commune. Plovdiv, with a drum in the village of Yavrovo, commune. Plovdiv.

The eight photographed models pose in folk costumes from different ethnographic areas, and some of the costumes are from the personal collection of the photographer Asen Velikov.

The aim behind the In Search of Sound initiative is for the models - all with varying degrees of hearing loss - to interact with the musical instruments and test how, in what way, they respond to the sounds, rhythms and melodies of live, immediate sound. The photographs in the exhibition have captured exactly this interaction and testing of acoustic possibilities by people who are partially or completely deaf.

"The idea of a photo exhibition appeared as a natural consequence of this musical experiment. Each photo session tells a story, from which an independent exhibition can be made. When selecting photos for this one, however, Asen Velikov and I were guided by a completely different idea - the shots should not tell stories, but show the captured emotional moments from the overall search for sound. It was worth showing all of this to the general public, because of the cause behind the experiment and our belief that music as a healing tool could be the key to awakening 'sleeping' acoustic nerves in people with hearing loss," Choparova also shared.

  The twenty-one panels from the photo exhibition "In search of the sound" will be able to be seen in the salon of the Regional Ethnographic Museum until December 13.