Dear playwrights, theatre makers and researchers, please check out this platform: just got back from my short residency at Radar Sofia and I would strongly recommend and encourage you to apply! Smart, devoted and caring people, coexistence of different historical layers and time zones, not to mention the gem of inspirations and perfect place to hunt for narratives – the city of Sofia – place (yet) untouched by gentrification and Euro-sterile boredom.

Vaiva Grainytė, Golden Lion winner from the Venice Biennial 2019 and November 2019 resident at Radar

What we offer at the moment is a free space to live and create and abundant connections to the local scene. In some cases we can offer a small stipend to our residents, please check out the News section and our open calls.

Orientation tour within the city and networking with artists from the local scene is for those who will be willing to get this help, otherwise you will be the one in charge of how you spend your time. We would like to organise for you a public lecture, a screening, presentation or reading and this will be arranged on individual basis. All our residents so far have participated in some form in a performance, event, workshop, or lecture together with local artists.

We have secured the commitment of the British Council in Bulgaria to offer their support in presenting or promoting your work whenever that would be possible. The same is done by our partners from Goethe-Institut Bulgarien. Goethe-Institut Bulgarien were as kind as to offer their Luft Studio for our guests coming from all fields of artistic practice if they want to lead a workshop. For the visual artists (under the Artist at Risk umbrella) we have a network of contacts with galleries, curators and festivals. 

Otherwise, the residency has started as a more informal one; a residency that makes you feel and experience life as a local. You will not be accommodated in a five star hotel, but in a separate room in an apartment with other artists, right in the centre of the city. This will facilitate an easier connection to people and events from the artistic scene of Sofia in case you wish to explore it. Of course, your privacy and you own space and time is Radar’s top priority. At a walking distance from all major points of interest, you will probably not incur any transportation costs within the city.

Sofia is probably the cheapest city to live in the European Union and is also well connected with low-cost flights to other major cities in the region.

If you liked your stay, you may wish to dedicate a verse, a page of prose, a copy of a book, a photograph, or something else created by you to the residency space, but this is up to you to decide.

Any new works created, conceived or finished within the framework of the residency will have to mention the name of RadAr Sofia when they get published or presented to the public as well as in all media materials about them.