Living Archive
Ongoing research project
The Living Archive Initiative is an evolving interdisciplinary project exploring relationships between ecology, cultural memory, landscape and collective belonging.
The project proposes forests as living archives: ecological spaces that preserve intangible cultural heritage alongside biodiversity restoration. Drawing upon Bulgarian folklore, embroidery symbolism and environmental thinking, the initiative investigates how reforestation might function simultaneously as ecological intervention, memorial structure and participatory cultural archive.
Central to the research is the Elbetica symbol, traditionally associated with continuity, familial memory and cosmic interconnectedness. Reimagined as a large-scale landscape blueprint, the motif becomes a framework for planting forests embedded with oral histories, songs, recipes and personal narratives linked to individual trees through digital archives.
Positioned between conceptual art, ecological imagination, cultural preservation and speculative landscape practice, the project continues to develop through research, writing, visual experimentation and long-term planning.
Intertwined
A Discovery of Connections Between Nature and Humans as a Way of Ecological Recovery (2025)
Intertwined explores relationships between humans and the natural world through ecology, memory, cultural narratives and photographic practice. The research investigates ideas of interconnectedness, ecological belonging and more-than-human relationships, questioning dominant understandings that position humans as separate from nature.
Drawing from environmental philosophy, Indigenous knowledge systems and contemporary ecological discourse, the project reflects on how alternative ways of thinking about kinship, agency and reciprocity might inform both ecological recovery and artistic practice. The research continues to shape my work around landscape, heritage, forests, material processes and cultural memory.
Research Interests
My research explores relationships between ecology, memory, cultural heritage and photographic practice. Through photography, writing, historical photographic processes and interdisciplinary research, I investigate questions of ecological belonging, landscape, folklore, materiality and human–nature relationships.Current areas of interest include:
- Ecological belonging and more-than-human relationships
- Forests, landscape and cultural memory
- Folklore, mythology and intergenerational knowledge
- Photography, material practice and historical processes
- Environmental humanities and ecological thought
- Identity, place and experiences of home