The exhibition presents 90 stills by the famous Bulgarian photographer Garo Keshishyan. They trace the daily life in a Varna division of labor troops and make up the final stage in a series of photographs taken in the period 1981–1996.

Compulsory labor in Bulgaria was introduced in 1920, obliging both sexes to perform free labor for the benefit of the state. The totalitarian regime further developed and ideologized the institution of the labor troops. By this period, the trudovaks (the colloquial name of those who served) were already made up exclusively of men from ethnic minorities, as well as “untrustworthy” Bulgarians—criminals and those politically inconvenient to the communist regime.

In 1981, Garo Keshishian had the right combination of luck, perseverance, and personal contacts to start photographing in a Varna military unit. He worked on and off for the next 14 years. In the barracks, he needed to be as “invisible” as possible, because his permission to be there was fluctuating and unofficial. Under these circumstances, the choice of approach was natural—a 35mm camera and a quick journalistic response, using only the light at hand.

After 1989, Garo had the opportunity to work relatively openly in the labor divisions. After being self-financed for 12 years, in 1994, the artist received support from the Swiss foundation Pro Helvetia. The project was completed in 1995, when selected photographs from this monumental work were shown at an exhibition in Varna. Labor troops existed until 2000. (Rafaelo Kazakov, 2018.)

This is what Garo Keshishian has said about his project: “I worked hard to gain the trust of the boys I photographed. Thanks to this trust, I was able to reproduce their daily struggle to preserve their humanity in the face of inhumane living and working conditions. Throughout the whole series, the blatant ethnic discrimination underlying the communist and post-communist labor troops in Bulgaria is constantly visible. But the strongest driving force that kept me returning to the trudovaks with my camera again and again was my compassion for these boys, whose only fault was where and when they were born.”

The exhibition is made possible with the support of Photosynthesis.