The Bulgarian Pavilion - The Federation of Minor Practices - is conceived as the headquarters of a fictional research lab operating within a care oriented political imagination. Positioned ahead of the present, the Pavilion looks back at the early 21st century as the moment when the conditions for this future first became visible.
The near past of this formation is presented through four films in the presentation which have been newly commissioned for the occasion:
Gery Georgieva's "UWU Channel Radiance" which mobilises digital myth and prophecy to question regimes of identity, pleasure, and mediated truth.
Veneta Androva's "Spray and Pray", a work that examines infrastructures of disinformation through the ecology of mushroom websites and algorithmic systems.
Rayna Teneva's "Geography Is Destiny" is a new film which traces the entanglement of labour, care, and violence in the Rose Valley surrounding the Bulgarian town of Kazanluk, where rose harvesting coexists with arms production.
Maria Nalbantova's ongoing work at the Dragoman Marsh in Bulgaria unfolds as a long term practice of ecological care, combining artistic research, environmental maintenance, and the recording of local human and non human narratives.
Conceived as an interactive environment based on a computer game, The Federation of Minor Practices gathers signals from the four films and activates them through play as a practice of collective orientation. From the perspective of an imagined future, the Pavilion appears as an early laboratory of formation, where shared acts of attention, care, and play began to assemble a post sovereign political imagination.
Curator Martina Yordanova says, "The Pavilion does not propose a future. It sustains the conditions through which futures begin to take form collectively, attentively, and through care."
Commissioner: Dessislava Dimova, National Gallery, Sofia says, "The Federation" is a bold curatorial project that weaves the practices of four artists who have never worked together before into a shared narrative. The pavilion marks Bulgaria's fourth consecutive participation in Biennale Arte in recent years. We are building a strong presence in Venice through projects that testify to the vitality of the Bulgarian art scene and its awareness of our historical responsibility in the present."... read the rest of the article»
BIOGRAPHIES
Veneta Androva (b. 1985 in Sofia, Bulgaria) is a visual artist living and working between Berlin and Sofia. Working across CGI-based moving image, multi-channel video, and spatial formats, she examines how contemporary realities are shaped by technological systems, mediated information, and structures of power. Androva studied Fine Arts at the Weißensee Academy of Art Berlin, as well as Philosophy and Art History at Humboldt University in Berlin.
Gery Georgieva (b. 1986 in Varna, Bulgaria) is а multimedia artist who lives and works in London. Her practice encompasses video, performance, music, installation and sculpture. Through improvisation and self-staging, she examines how cultural identity is configured, interrogating media conventions, commercial gender roles and where they collide with ideas of nationhood. She studied Fine Art at Goldsmiths, University of London, and completed her postgraduate studies at the Royal Academy Schools, London (GB).
Maria Nalbantova (b. 1990 in Sofia, Bulgaria) is a visual artist working across mixed media and various techniques, including sculpture, DIY biomaterials, video, and drawing. She explores the relationships between human society and its environment, focusing on notions of coexistence, care, and responsibility. She studied at the National Academy of Arts in Sofia and has participated in Silk Road: Artists' Rendezvous – International Artists' Silk Road Field Residency (2025), China; Residency Unlimited (2022), New York, as well as the International Summer Academy (2021), Salzburg, Austria.
Rayna Teneva (b.1986 in Kazanlak, Bulgaria) is an artist working between Sofia and Vienna. Teneva creates works that unfold in cinematic, installation, or performative formats. Frequently rooted in the
vulnerable and the overlooked, her projects open up a space for collective reflection within the speculative field between the documentary and the fictional. Rayna Teneva graduated in Media Art from the University of Arts and Design Karlsruhe, Germany, and in Photography from the National Academy for Theatre and Film Arts (NATFA) in Sofia, Bulgaria.
Martina Yordanova (b.1985 in Veliko Tarnovo, Bulgaria) is currently curator at The National Gallery, Sofia, Founder and artistic director of IATRUS Residency Program in Veliko Tarnovo and founding member of Eastern Balkans Institute for Art and Architecture. At the National Gallery she works at developing partnerships, producing, and sharing knowledge around Bulgarian and international contemporary art.
Dessislava Dimova is an art historian and curator of contemporary art with over twenty years of international experience. Her research focuses on the history of Bulgarian art within a broader European context. In 2025, she organised the research and donation of works by contemporary Bulgarian artists to the Centre Pompidou, Paris. She has worked both independently and in collaboration with institutions including Bozar, Brussels (2017–2019) and WIELS, Brussels (2024–2025). In 2025, she joined the curatorial team of the National Gallery, Sofia.
Title: The Bulgarian Pavilion - The Federation of Minor Practices
Opening: May 09, 2026
Ending: November 22, 2026
Organization: Ministero della Cultura della Repubblica di Bulgaria / Galleria Nazionale di Sofia
Curator: Martina Yordanova
Place: Venezia, Centro Culturale Don Orione Artigianelli – Sala Tiziano
Address: Fondamenta Zattere Ai Gesuati 919 - 30123 Venezia (VE)
More info on this website: https://www.bulgarianpavilionvenice.art
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