Becoming A Kirkovchanin

A long-term photographic work exploring how belonging forms through sustained presence in a small border town in southern Bulgaria.

Becoming a Kirkovchanin began in 2020 through repeated visits to Kirkovo, a small town in southern Bulgaria near the borders with Greece and Turkey. The work is not built around a singular event or defined narrative, but around time spent within the ordinary rhythms of the place.

Through shared meals, seasonal labour, domestic interiors, and gestures of waiting, the photographs observe how familiarity develops gradually. Encounters that begin as observation shift toward participation, and distance slowly gives way to intimacy.

My presence in Kirkovo is shaped by marriage. As someone who arrived from elsewhere and has become part of a family in the town, my position is neither fully external nor fully native. The work reflects this in-between space, a process of learning how belonging forms through repetition and return.

The photographs do not attempt a comprehensive portrait of the town. Instead, they trace how identity can emerge through sustained presence, where living alongside others becomes more important than explaining them.