Photo: Yana Lozeva
The names of 23 women, murdered by their partners or relatives, are projected onto the Parliament building in Sofia, Bulgaria.
23 reasons is an art action, conceptualized by Fine Acts for the Bulgarian Helsinki Committee, that urged Bulgarian Parliament to ratify an important treaty opposing violence against women.
The debate was being kidnapped by absurd arguments, so we recaptured the narrative by projecting the names of 23 women murdered by their partners on the Parliament building, on the night before a crucial vote on January 23, 2018.
Since then the image became iconic, and is the go-to photo of traditional and online media alike, when discussing brutal violence against women.
The 23 women are only a small fraction of all of those who have lost their lives at the hands of a partner or relative in the last five years in Bulgaria. Recent murders of women shed a light on serious gaps in Bulgarian legislation and its implementation. Every fourth woman in the country is a victim of domestic violence.
The action was part of a campaign for the ratification of the convention, supported by over 200 organizations in Bulgaria.
The action was carried out with the support of one of our valued ACT Labs participants, Vladislav Iliev, co-founder of Phormatik Visual Lab.