The research foundation of this project is the phenomenon of religious and cultural syncretism - the interweaving and mutual shaping of Orthodox Christian tradition with deeply rooted folk beliefs that trace back to Thracian and Greek cultural strata. Bulgaria, as a region uniquely suited to the study of these processes, bears the marks of centuries of overlapping meanings, rituals, and practices. It is a world in which the sacred assumes forms that exist beyond the institutional discourse of religion, where sites of divine revelation coexist with places of hidden worship, and where spiritual energy accumulates in places few would expect to find it -in thermal springs, along roadsides, and in the homes of clairvoyants.

In the artist’s view, Bulgaria emerges as an enigmatic country where the boundaries between worlds remain fluid and transitions between traditions feel natural - where every object, every ritual, and every gesture forms part of a larger spiritual architecture that is not fixed but open to dialogue, exchange, and the continual renegotiation of meaning. It is precisely this openness, this resistance to singular or definitive interpretations, that gives the project its strength. Rather than offering definitive answers, Koźmiński invites us on a journey to the origins of time and into the realm of courageous creative imagination.

Edition © 2026 Rust Publishing

ISBN 978-83-970856-9-5

Photographs: Konrad Koźmiński 

Texts: Zofia Kręc, Konrad Koźmiński

Sequence: Tomasz Kawecki 

Design: Jakub Szachnowski

Cover: Dominik Rolek

Color grading: Jan Almashan

DTP: Tomasz Kubaczyk

Translation: Patrick Leftwich, Zofia Kręc

Coordination: Jakub Szachnowski

Print run: 500 

Papers: Crush Almond, Munken Print Cream

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