Iskra Prodanova

Iskra Prodanova (b. 1988 in Varna/BG) is a multidisciplinary artist, researcher, and co-founder and artistic director of the Moving Body platform (est. 2016). Her practice operates at the intersection of contemporary dance, performance art, and interdisciplinary research.

At the core of her artistic work is an exploration of inner utopias as forms of resistance and resilience. She engages with themes such as memory, identity, colonial legacies, decolonization, and collective healing. Through practices of slowing down, listening, and (un)learning, she creates spaces for alternative modes of being and social transformation.
Prodanova regards kindness and vulnerability as radical artistic acts. Her practice invites collective reflection on societal, cultural, and personal transformation processes.

For Varna, Iskra Prodanova was selected by Slavs and Tatars and the ifa as a fellow of the Pickle Bar Residency and Mentorship Program. During her two-month stay in Berlin (February–March 2025), she curated and realized the performance Confession of Sigh, which addresses embodied memory, care, and postcolonial self-positioning.

As part of the EVROVIZION exhibition, both the Pickle Bar installation and the residency program developed by Slavs and Tatars are being presented. These two initiatives offer platforms for dialogue that reach beyond institutional frameworks of contemporary art. The residency studios and the Pickle Bar are based in Berlin’s multicultural Moabit district and reflect the linguistic and cultural diversity of the neighborhood. By integrating Pickle Bar into the EVROVIZION project, each venue of the touring exhibition becomes a site for local exchange. For each exhibition opening, a young cultural practitioner from the respective host country is selected to take part in the residency in Berlin. Over the course of two months, they develop individual projects, some of which are later presented as part of the exhibition.

As a hybrid stage, artistic installation, and site of dialogue, the Pickle Bar serves as a space for artistic and societal encounter. Within this context, Prodanova was embedded in the Slavs and Tatars studio and developed her work in close dialogue with both local and international discourses.