ECHO II: Traditions in Transition

“ECHO II: Traditions In Transition” (September 2020 – June 2022) was a European cultural project, in the context of which we invited artists living in North Macedonia, Bulgaria, Greece and Hungary, and working in the fields of painting, sculpture, graphic design, fashion design, craftwork and mural to create original artworks inspired by the following selected local traditions:

• The Prespa Lake (North Macedonia),
• The city of Sofia (Bulgaria),
• Spetses island (Greece) and the sea,
• The life and community of Győr distillery’s workers (Hungary), and
• Smolyan town (Bulgaria).

We perceive local traditions as dynamic and evolving processes that shape and are shaped by the lives of local communities. This means that we recognise traditions as constitutive elements of cultural identities, but we don’t consider them as ‘objects’ that need to remain unaltered and get protected via musealisation. In this light,  we took a critical stance towards established but unfruitful perspectives that restrict innovation and creativity, and we considered ECHO II an opportunity:

• for artists to highlight and renew local traditions through contemporary artistic creation, and
• for the local communities to self-reflect, and hence, reconceptualise and revitalise their own traditions within the framework of European cultural heritage.