It has been 22 years since the Sofia Central Baths last saw regulars taking advantage of its healing mineral waters. From that time till the present, the structure - which earned a place on Bulgaria's list of monuments of cultural significance in 1988 - has been a source of debate, with one side advocating for its restoration and reopening as a spa facility of sorts, and the other adamant that it would best serve as a museum of the city of Sofia.

Years of construction and renovations, a metal-panel fence surrounding the 1913 building blocking from view of the goings-on inside. New windows (PVC) were installed, the walls patched, primed and painted. Over the past two years, most of the interior Art Deco detailing has been covered with drywall, the only visible remnant of the baths' glory being the wrought-iron lamp stands and staircase railings of an unknown date.

The rehab is not yet complete, however. Cracked and worn away, blue, gold, brown faux carrelage tiling covers the floor, cement blocks giving new bones to the structure remain naked, pomegranate-red paint peeks through the primer and plastic sheeting covers this lamp stand, that door frame.

Back, to one side, through a doorway, down the stairs, through another passage and a smattering of rubble on the ground, history remains. Apart from a few plastic beer bottles, dust-covered and labels in styles of the recent past, and a cascade of tiles and cement in one corner, the men's changing room remains untouched by humans. The pool room, too, retains its 1980s-style blue-and-yellow sea shells and waves motif. For now.

In July 2008, a decision was taken. The building will fulfil the desires of both parties: half will be a modern day spa, half will show Sofia's history in a museum.

On August 18, the State Gazette announced a tender for the concession for the museum segment of the central baths. (Interestingly enough, when Sofia municipality published the call for bids for the spa segment on its official website on October 1, the only language in which it was listed was English. The bids were to be submitted in Bulgarian.)

Now, already mid-October, the building will be open to the public for the first time. Not for getting wet or for looking at old objects, but for ruminating over contemporary art, in an exhibition entitled Остани, остани (Stay, Stay).

Stay, Stay is a project of Bulgaria's InterSpace Association, realised as part of the Opening the Closed Shops residency exchange in partnership with Akademie Schloss Solitude, Stuttgart; a-i-r laboratory; Centre for Contemporary Art; Ujazdowski Castle, Warsaw; József Attila Circle, Budapest; ACAX, Budapest; and New Media Center_kuda.org, Novi Sad; and supported by Norwegian ambassador Tove Skarstein and the embassy of Norway in Bulgaria, and Allianz Kulturstiftung.

The 16 pieces in the exhibition look at space and how it affects a person's life. "It's about the necessity to stay in one place, and explores places to which we normally might not pay attention" because we see them each day, Margarita Dorovska, curator of the show along with Antonia Lotz, said at a news conference at Sofia Central Baths on October 9.

At the same news conference, Skarstein expressed her happiness that a Norwegian artist - Helene Sommer - was part of the project. In addition, by the Norwegian embassy supporting the exhibition, it helped strengthen bilateral relations between the two countries, she said.
"Bulgaria and Norway have always been very far apart geographically, but now, in a smaller world, we're closer. It helps to know each other, and culture is a good form of expression."

She also said that people had a tendency to think that their own culture was "very national, but usually it has come to [their] country from other cultures and has then become [theirs]", with, for instance, a notable part of Norwegian culture being inspired of the Black Sea expeditions of the Vikings in the 10th and 11th centuries.

Participating in Stay, Stay are artists Corinne May Botz (USA), Petko Dourmana (Bulgaria), Aleksandra Went and Alicja Karska (Poland), Dagmar Keller and Martin Wittwer (Germany/Switzerland), Daniel Kunle (Germany), Min Kyung Lii (South Korea/New Zealand), Yassen Markov (Bulgaria/Germany), Gergely Nagy (Hungary), Olof Olsson (Denmark), Theo Prodromidis (Greece/UK), Henrietta Rose-Innes (South Africa), Kaiwan Mehta (India), Lisa Steele and Kim Tomczak (Canada), Kamen Stoyanov (Bulgaria), Krassimir Terziev (Bulgaria) and Venelin Shourelov (Bulgaria).

Art forms include video, photography and installations.

The October 10 7pm opening features performance by Lii, Olsson and Shourelov; from 9.30pm, DJ Dontwarrior will spin.

The next day, Saturday, includes literature readings by Nagy (2pm), performance by Olsson (3pm), a talk on the principles of architecture by Markov (4pm), a Neuland projection and discussion with Kunle (5pm) and video projections of works by Terziev, Prodromidis, and Steele and Tomczak (7.30pm).

October 25, the day that Stay, Stay closes, sees the presentation of an epistolary project by Mehta and Rose-Innes at 4pm. All lectures and performances are free entrance.

The exhibition (at Sofia Central Baths, 1 Banski Square) is open to the public from Mondays to Fridays, noon to 6pm, and Saturdays and Sundays, 11am to 6pm, from October 11 to 25 2008.