Can you tell me about the initial foundation of your archives? What methods do you use to find and incorporate images, and what criteria do you apply in this process?

In 2001, I finished my degree at the Technical University of Sofia where I was studying photography. That is where my love and affection for photographic media first emerged: negatives, diapositives, photographic prints, albums, and different types of photo books that you can touch and feel with your hands and eyes. After I graduated, I worked in commercial photography for a while, photographing all kinds of family events, which brought me closer to people and their traditions and habits. The combination of these two things somehow naturally aroused my interest in collecting and archiving family photographs taken by amateurs. I began my artistic project Imaginary Archive by collecting negatives, which at that time (2007–2008) I could easily find at flea markets all over the country and especially in Sofia. Shortly after, I began collecting photographic prints, and at first, I was not looking for specific things. I preferred to buy them in bulk and then look through them carefully in my studio and separate them into different categories. My biggest interest was the life of the Bulgarian family under socialism. I organised and categorised the photos with that context in mind. I wanted to explore their habits, their holidays, how they relaxed and found joy in their lives, and what the life of a family looked like. This was very important to me because these family photos allowed me to look at the life of the Bulgarian family from up close, I could learn about it straight from the source. And that, in turn, is very important because photography was one of the most powerful tools of propaganda during the socialist regime, it is almost impossible to find something sincere, pure, and not staged in the official archives, no matter how hard you try. I created several projects about the Bulgarian family, and I became known as a person who could disseminate a family's history, and so people began to donate their family archives to my collection. I had to decide what to do with these archives so that they could really become available to a wider audience and be part of the cultural heritage of Bulgaria. This is how the Bulgarian Visual Archive got started.

You have an impressive number of images. Do you use a tagging system to catalogue them? If so, could you describe how it works?

I use Adobe Bridge to embed metadata into the files. The numbering follows each collector’s collection and the sequential order of the films. I use those when they are available, and if not, I generate new ones in sequence, then I catalogue them by year, location, media, situation, architecture, event, people in the photo, etc. This is a complex process when it comes to found photographs about which not much is known, sometimes I must seek help from social media, where I ask for more information. For donations, I rely on information provided by the donors. Whenever there are large sets of metadata, I use a script I wrote myself which enters them from Excel tables.

What challenges do you face in preserving and maintaining your archives?

There are many challenges resulting from the fact that different formats require a different approach to storage and accessibility. For now, I store all physical materials in my home, where I have divided them into several categories: negatives, diapositives, photographic prints, family albums, and photobooks. I store the digital copies on a small NAS server with an additional copy stored in the cloud. The digital copies are divided into three categories: Media, Collections, and Subcategories (Geography, Architecture, Traditions, Events, Sports, etc.). Of course, not all material in the archive has been catalogued, a large part of it is still waiting in line to enter the archive and become available to the members of our team and everyone accessing the website.

Can you discuss any ethical considerations you consider when curating and displaying images online?

I try not to glorify this historical period or impose any kind of opinion through the photos I upload, I prefer to be neutral and objective, to let everyone come to their own conclusions and decisions about the time, the people, and the regime. Beyond that, I refrain from uploading images of violence or indecent photographs of people.

The camera is often seen as an invention shaped by capitalism, yet Eastern Europe has a distinct history of capitalism compared to Western Europe and North America. In your opinion, is there a unique perspective or way of using the camera that is characteristic of Eastern European people? Are there any particular themes or patterns you've noticed in the imagery?

Here, the camera is mostly used to record the daily life of its owner, mostly capturing moments of happiness. If you look deep inside a family’s archive, you will find that people very rarely use the camera to capture a non-positive event (except for funerals), which leads me to conclude that people do not want to remember the bad moments of their lives, they mostly focus on the good ones. Of course, propaganda has also done its job very well and you can see in the photographs how people often choose to take pictures in front of monuments of the regime, or at the resort bases for state enterprises and factories where they could vacation as part of their social benefits.

In your view, what is the most important social aspect or attribute reflected in the overall imagery of your project?

BVA illustrates the legacy of 20th-century architecture, traditions, tastes, and lifestyle in Bulgaria. It fills a large lacuna of photography that can be easily accessed, downloaded, and discussed in online spaces. It also helps connect young researchers interested in the historical past in its unadulterated form. Another very important social aspect of this project is the community that emerged in support of the causes and inquiries of the archive, our donors who believe in our ideas and are ready to support us in all kinds of ways, for which I am very grateful!

What future directions or expansions do you envision?

We are currently in the process of looking for a space where the entirety of the archive can be hosted, studied, and made physically available to the public. This is very important for us because it will foster a better understanding of the importance of using and preserving amateur photography archives among a wider age range. We are also looking into amateur films, and we want to band together with the local amateur home movie archive, the KinoClub Super8, which has put a lot of effort into preserving and digitizing these kinds of materials.