Plovdiv, 2018 - Do West-Europeans watch Bulgaria the same way Plovdivians watch Stolipinovo? How is labour migration perceived by Roma? Can love wait? A collaborative research with people from Stolipinovo, the most populous predominantly Romani-inhabited district on the Balkans.
Labour migration
Love can wait is a publication containing street interviews and documentation of meetings with people researching Stolipinovo. It was written between June and August 2018 during a residency in Plovdiv, Bulgaria, on invitation of Plovdiv European Capital of Culture 2019 (ECOC). These stories were basic to an artistic research on poverty migration and labour migration from East Europe to West Europe, resulting in a proposal for Plovdiv ECOC: a live documentary theater piece about labour migration, taking the form of an employment agency. This proposal was not selected.
Keeping on working on this topic Love can wait became basis to a bigger project: FairJobs: the fairest job agency of The Netherlands?
Love can wait
‘Right now, I’ve got a girlfriend here. Our parents know, we can’t be together without getting married. When I want to see her, I have to stay here. When I go to London we are separated. But if I stay here, I won’t be able to get a degree and this will be a problem in the future. Now that I have the chance to go to university, I don’t want to miss it. So I have to choose between love and university.’
‘You’re in love,’ I smile.
‘It’s a mutual feeling,’ he answers.
‘Love can wait.’
‘Yeah, love can wait. But I don’t like the feeling of missing someone.’
