The everyday street photography of Svilen Nachev

Svilen Nachev’s post-socialist street photography seeks the ‘hidden’ within the mundane

Images that circulate widely on social media play a decisive role in shaping how social and political realities are produced, perceived, and contested. Far from being neutral, these images contribute to the formation of cultural and territorial identities, reinforcing dominant narratives while also holding the potential to disrupt, reframe, and resist them.

Within this context, Der Greif “Local Voices” continues to foreground situated perspectives and collaborative authorship as a way of slowing down image circulation and re-embedding images within their social, cultural, and political conditions. Through an ongoing exercise in co-writing, the project examines how visual practices can counter homogenizing narratives and support more plural, democratic forms of representation by insisting on specificity, locality, and dialogue, foregrounding situated knowledge over dominant or centralized narratives.

Svilen Nachev’s work bridges the gap between the gritty realism of post-socialist street photography and a surreal, flash-lit abstraction that seeks the ‘hidden’ within the mundane. By navigating the decaying landscapes of provincial Bulgaria with a modern, inquisitive eye, Nachev captures the dialogue between histories embedded in the surroundings’ aesthetics and the internal search for meaning. In this conversation, we explore the evolution of his aesthetic, from the influence of 1990s MTV culture to his recent explorations of light and color.

Nachev is a contemporary Bulgarian photographer whose work sits at the intersection of documentary reportage and conceptual abstraction. Growing up in a Danube River town during the transitional 1990s, his early artistic sensibilities were shaped by a mix of DIY music culture and the iconic aesthetics of National Geographic and Magnum Photos.

Ilaria Sponda: Where does your need to photograph come from?

Svilen Nachev: There is a cliché in photography: "I shoot because I cannot not shoot." In a way, that answers where the need comes from. I believe the need for creativity is deeply embedded in every one of us; whether it is photography or something else, I believe a person draws closer to the divine when they create and build. Beyond being an aesthetic and visual language, photography is also a document. I think this role is exceptionally important: to leave a small piece of what once was for future generations. Despite the subjective lens, it remains a point of view and, perhaps, an evaluation of reality.

IS: I’m curious to know how your background informs your photographic style and subject matter.

SN: I grew up in a small town on the Danube River during the 1990s. It was an exceptionally free place, open to world culture. In a post-socialist society, we all yearned for something new and different. This outcry unlocked a curiosity toward the world in every direction; in a time before the internet, everything we cared about was MTV. I started playing music in my teens and I still play today, but photography eventually took the lead in my life. I’ve realized that every art form we engage with enriches us in different areas and influences our subsequent pursuits. I started shooting in black and white around 2011, but when you shoot in a small town, you run out of locations quickly. Documenting reality eventually turned into an internal search. I began challenging myself, first by moving to color photography, and shortly after (in 2019), I started shooting everywhere and at any time using a flash.

IS: Who are some of your references?

SN: My approach is to know as much as possible about the photography that came before me and to learn from it. From my teenage years until now, I’ve been inspired by a vast number of authors, from the classical to the modern. I could say I am a ‘child’ of National Geographic and their aesthetic, specifically from the 1990s, where we constantly saw Magnum photographers in the magazine (though I only realized who they were later). That whole artistic-reportage aesthetic shaped my relationship with the street and my documentary search. Of course, much later, when I became fascinated by the flash, I discovered that tradition as well from Weegee to Mark Cohen, Larry Fink, and Lars Tunbjörk. In my book “The Illusion of Meaning,” which was released very recently, I attempt to combine all my "fixed ideas" into a form that merges black-and-white with color photography. All the shots are in color, yet they feel monochromatic because of the light and the spaces where they were taken.

IS: What's the photography community like in Bulgaria for what you’ve experienced?

SN: There are many world-class photographers here, such as Penko Skumov, Valery Poshtarov, and many others, but we lack the institutions to legitimize photography and present it to society as a significant art form. I see this as a huge problem, but also a sphere where much work can be done and many opportunities can be found. I particularly appreciate the work done by magazine and podcast Obscura Mag or the studio Radlab Studio, Gallery Synthesis and PUK, a photobook platform funded in 2017 by Nikola Mihov, Tihomir Stoyanov and Rossen Kuzmanov. Photography is the most democratic art; today, everyone is a photographer, but a wide chasm exists between mass taste and ‘good’ photography that is difficult to bridge.

IS: Could you talk about the reading, ideas, or research that informed "Dream of the Flesh" and its early phases?

SN: In my projects, I always try to mix many different disciplines like philosophy, psychology, religion, etc. In this project, I aimed to unite several smaller projects from my body of work. I began to imagine the title as a beautiful metaphor for human life in general. In a way, I imagine how these united parts can show the fullness of a human life more than a single moment can. Generally, photography deals with the past and memories; with abstract shots, I want to link the past, present, and future and document reality and abstraction.

IS: How does your work relate to ‘Bulgarianness’ and the aesthetics of the places you are drawn to – mostly abandoned places and streets?

SN: I simply use the surrounding Bulgarian environment as my stage and tool. After the fall of the Iron Curtain, Bulgaria opened up to the world, which led to extremely high emigration: a loss of a third of our population was recorded. The migration from the provinces to larger cities has led to the decay of villages. There are so many abandoned schools, factories, and houses in Bulgaria. This, of course, can be seen as a trace and metaphor for the society I live in, but my goal has never been to present this phenomenon, truly. On the contrary, I want to speak about the inner world as being more important than the outer one and my personal relation to the outer world.

IS: How do you relate to the concept of ‘authenticity’ in your work? Especially when it comes to depicting underrepresented, hidden narratives from your surroundings.

SN: Perhaps today, the hardest thing in photography is trying to show the world in a new way. Every photograph is a synergy between the external world and the author's internal interpretation of it. I believe I shoot best in places I know well, where I can immerse myself deeply, exploring every possible direction and theme invisible to the naked eye. The hidden has always attracted me. It is also a metaphor for what is there, but which few actually see.