On December 5, the Tolerance Poster Show in Sofia was installed on the fence of the National School of Music. The School is situated on one of the capital's most iconic streets — Oborishte Street — in immediate proximity to the Union of Bulgarian Artists, Shipka 6. There, from December 15, 2025, to January 20, 2026, the 11th International Triennial of Stage Poster — Sofia 2025 is on display, which this Tolerance Poster Show was a part of.
On Saturday, December 13, the organizer of the Tolerance exhibition received indications that some parents had protested to the principal of the Music School. On the evening of Monday, December 15th, parents tore off four panels they considered problematic. All four billboards have posters with rainbow colors. By the morning of Tuesday, December 16th, the principal ordered the removal of the complete exhibition.
Now, not just the colors of the rainbow, but all the colors are gone. All that's left is the iron fence and the black tarpaulin.
An Ipsos study from 2023 estimates that 8% of the worldwide population identifies as lesbian, gay, bisexual, pansexual, omnisexual or asexual. What if the kids of these protesting parents turned out to be part of that 8%? Would they embrace them? Or would they tear them down, too?
In the 1940s, Karl Popper was watching Europe fracture under ideologies that promised perfection. Fascism on the right... communism on the left. Each claimed moral certainty, each silenced dissent, and both produced the same result: ruin. He also saw that when societies built on freedom fail, they fail because they forget how to defend that freedom, not because they lack ideals. That distinction is important and became known as the Paradox of Tolerance.
'Let's look at where things are today. The people most likely to describe themselves as "tolerant" often carry the firmest moral boundaries. Their openness ends right where their convictions begin. They don't enter conversations to be open or change. Instead, they enter to show that they don't need to be. You can hear it in how people with conviction build their case. They take a broad topic and zoom in until only a small part is emphasized. That part becomes the whole argument, which to them, feels very clear. That's why conviction feels like clarity. It's not a wide view, it's actually very narrow.' – Karl Popper
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