Chavdar Ghiuselev: Do Not Stay Indifferent

Introduction by ACS President Emily Sargent Beasley

It is a privilege to welcome this year’s Commencement Speaker, Associate Professor Chavdar Ghiuselev—an artist, educator, and scenographer whose life and work reflect what many of our students already know to be true: that identity is rarely singular.

Mr. Ghiuselev studied Illustration and Book Design at the National Academy of Art, completing both his bachelor’s and master’s degrees under leading figures in the field. In 2016, he earned his doctorate at New Bulgarian University with a study focused on how space is constructed in books and on stage—an inquiry that speaks to the heart of his life’s work: creating environments where meaning is made, where imagination and precision meet.

His career has taken him across Europe. After graduating, he spent years in Italy. He later returned to Bulgaria, where he became a leading figure in scenography, designing over twenty productions with some of the country’s most respected directors. His work on The Master and Margarita was the first Bulgarian performance featured in the official program of the Avignon Festival. A recipient of multiple Icarus and Aasker awards, Mr. Ghiuselev continues to be exhibited internationally and continues to shape the visual identity of major publications and book covers in Bulgaria.

But perhaps most important for today: Mr. Ghiuselev reminds us that artistic excellence and intellectual curiosity are not separate pursuits—they are deeply interwoven. His work exemplifies the values we uphold at ACS: the pursuit of mastery, the courage to explore, and the responsibility to shape culture with care and intention. He shows us that a life of depth, range, and purpose is rarely—if ever—singular.

Please join me in welcoming Associate Professor Chavdar Ghiuselev.

Dear graduates of the ACS Class of 2025,

I am honored to be standing here in front of you, your teachers, your parents, fully aware of the responsibility I have taken on, to give a speech on the occasion of your graduation. I won’t pretend – when I received the kind invitation, I was overwhelmed with emotions of all kinds – from wonder, surprise, pride, of course joy, but most of all fear. I asked myself, what have I done to deserve this recognition, what could I say to you, from the position of my age and my experience, that would reach you and touch you.

Then I was struck by a memory of my grandmother, a longtime math teacher for whom nothing was more important than education. She read and reread her favorite books until her dying breath. She had turned the pursuit of knowledge into a cult – everything else in her life took a back seat. I remembered how back when I was a rebellious adolescent, I looked upon her and her ideals with irony and skepticism, as I am sure every young person looks upon his elders while listening with ill hidden annoyance, trying hard to stay focused at their attempts to pass on the values they believe in. Especially when some of those values mean putting in the effort to accumulate knowledge instead of pursuing more enjoyable lighthearted pleasures.

Today, I understand and feel that this disconnect between generations is becoming more and more apparent. Of course, today the world is different, with other dynamics, full of other challenges that seemingly have little in common with the past. But is it that different? Have we moved so far away from the ideals and values of the past and what have we replaced them with?

For more than 15 years, I have been teaching young people, a little older than you. I understand now that my mission as a teacher lies not only in being a conduit of the knowledge I have accumulated over the years, it lies above all in the effort and ability to build bridges between generations, to try to understand the aspirations, dreams, ambitions, and peculiarities of young people entering life and do what I can to not appear like a fossil to them, irretrievably distant from their world, your world. Not an easy task, but well worth it, especially when I see the results of these efforts.

Today, here, we live in a free country, which is the most essential prerequisite for dialogue, opinion exchanges, disputes, oppositions, discussions, for the search for “truth”, building communities with different, contradictory ideas that can be shared openly without fear of being sanctioned or even imprisoned for it.

Everything I just listed cannot happen without the word freedom. You were born, in a free and democratic Bulgaria and for you it is a given, something completely normal, which is not subject to doubt and challenge. And so it should be.

However, not so long ago, as it seems to you now, this freedom was taken away from us for a long period of time – almost half a century. I can speak about this in the first person because I lived in that dark time until my 30th birthday. A time that unfortunately some still feel nostalgic about, idealise, and falsify. Your wonderful school, the American College, the place you received an invaluable education, ceased to exist under so-called socialism and reopened its doors at the dawn of democracy. Towards democracy, we were heading slowly and painfully, fighting battles. The transition was not easy, some say it is not even over yet. De facto and de jure, we live in a democratic, free society, but in the minds of millions of people who built their mentality in that time, who constructed their lives according to the falsity of that era, the word democracy is loaded with a negative connotation. Democracy was not at all unanimously welcomed, on the contrary – many were scared, stressed to be torn out of that timelessness. There was even a concept from that period, stagnation they called it. Social, mental, cultural and spiritual stagnation. Some liked it, felt they were in their own waters where it was murky, where only parasites and big, bloodthirsty fish thrived, where the laws of evil ruled. Do not be mistaken: not all people want to be free, travel wherever they want, as you can and as you accept as the most normal and natural thing, without obstructions. Some people liked their prison, behind the Iron Curtain, they were not interested or excited by the free and prosperous world, they had no aspirations, they were used to the greyness and the gloom, they lived somehow.

You will ask, perhaps, why I am telling you all this, since it is a bygone, about a distant and probably not very clear time for you. The reason is that I want to point out that what you have as a given is far from secure, stable, and eternal. The only antidote is memory, telling the story of the trauma, and making sense of the experience. We still live, and perhaps always will live among people who don’t want to be free, and even loathe the free world and its values. Not only here, in our country. Everywhere there is a tendency to uniformity, to curtailing rights and freedoms, to debasement to the low, even to loathing aspirations to the spiritual and the sublime.

I hope you realize how lucky and fortunate you are, even if yes, we live in a time full of uncertainties and trepidations about what the future holds. However, you have a foundation in place – the democratic fabric that provides and empowers, endows you with unsuspected, as good as infinite possibilities, as long as you are willing to spread the wings of your imagination and unleash your creativity.

When I was your age, this was not possible. When democracy and freedom are absent, the world is closed, grey, sad, bleak and without perspective. Things like aspirations, initiative, entrepreneurship, development opportunities, even dreams are taken away. Others think for you, others determine what your life will be, where and how you will live it. That was the way it was with us, that was the time we were born and lived in.

You on the other hand are the offspring of freedom, of light. The proof is what surrounds us here, this wonderful and inspiring place, reborn as the phoenix bird to bestow upon you the gifts of enlightenment. Yes, this wonderful college, too, was caged, behind the Iron Curtain, buried under the mantle of mediocrity.

I will tell you one more thing – no one believed that that false, cruel and crushing time would end, that we would ever be part of the civilized world again, that we would be able to breathe freely, to feel equal. But here we are. Me with this gown in front of you, part of a dream come true, as if generated by AI in a fantasy movie. Yet, this is real. The American College is reborn, renewed, able to teach you critical thinking, give you invaluable knowledge and long-term perspectives that provide you with an equal start in life, in the vast, open world that awaits.

The world is shaking again though, again we are witnessing insane atrocities, bloody wars, some right beside us. How can we live, exist, learn, build our lives, have fun, love, work and create, when bombs are falling on civilized, beautiful and peaceful cities, killing innocent civilians, children, destroying churches, hospitals, theaters… I would like to have an answer, to give advice, a recipe if you will, but I fear I could not. All I know is that we cannot stand idly by, pretend that it is not there, exist as if it had never happened. I also know that people find places of refuge, adapt, get used to it and, unfortunately, give up.

I would like to tell you, to urge you – do not give up! Do not quit, do not stay indifferent, do not withdraw. If you do, the freedom that is now yours for the taking can very quickly be replaced with that dark and hopeless state. Freedom is fragile and tender and needs nurturing and defending. It is not freely given and gifted, it has been won with sacrifices that should not be forgotten.

I will return to the episode with my grandmother. I mentioned the word refuge. Hers was education, books. It seems illusory, but believe me, it was a real fortress. Education, memory and freedom. These, today, seem to me to constitute the life-affirming groundwork of the path you will take.