VARNA
Bulgaria
30.05.2025-19.06.2025
EVROVIZION.CROSSING VARNA
VARNA CITY ART GALLERY
30.05.-19.06.2025
Lyuben Karavelov 1
9002 Varna
Bulgaria
EVROVIZION.CROSSING STORIES AND SPACES is a project by ifa - Institut für Auslandsbeziehungen, it is being presented in Varna in cooperation with Goethe-Institut Bulgaria and Varna City Art Gallery “Boris Georgiev”.
Friday, 30 May 2025, 18:00
Opening with a new Performance by Ivana Ivković
Saturday, 31 May 2025, 16:00
Guided tour with artists and curators
Curated by Sabina Klemm and Sanja Kojić Mladenov, the co-creative exhibition explores contemporary art practices and the idea of a European identity. The exhibition’s title EVROVIZION is a construct made of similar and yet still different languages – Eurovisione / Evrovizija / Евровизия – a fusion of potential unities, a free version of potential togetherness. Through interdisciplinary, classical and cross-media artworks, the exhibition aims to reflect on different stories and spaces and to make specific local impulses visible. In close cooperation with regional protagonists and each local art scene, new artistic projects are being added to the exhibition during the course of its tour.
After the presentations in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, Greece, Cyprus and Tbilisi, the exhibition is coming to its sixth station, Varna City Art Gallery. The project has been expanded to include new works by Bulgarian artists Stefka Georgieva and Gery Georgieva. Further local expansion of the exhibition is also planned: Adnan Softić and Johanna Diehl, for example, will be developing new works in close cooperation with local actors.
Artists Gery Georgieva, Stefka Georgieva, Ivana Ivković, Nurtane Karagil, Adnan Softić and Kyriakos Theocharous will be present during the opening ceremony, as will the curators Sabina Klemm, Sanja Kojić Mladenov and Maria Efstathiou. The ceremony will open with a new performance by the artist Ivana Ivković. They will also be available to discuss their work as part of a guided tour on the following day (Saturday at 16:00).
Iskra Prodanova, a performance artist from Varna who is a fellow of the Slavs and Tatars’ international residency programme in Berlin. 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. The fellowship is supported by ifa-Institut für Auslandsbeziehungen.
Following the exhibition in Varna, a new issue of the EVROVIZION magazine will be published, thus enriching the “archive of the journey”. Co-edited by Nevena Valcheva, EVROVIZION.CROSSING VARNA will be dedicated to the presentation of the ever-growing project in Varna and its impact on the city’s cultural identity.
Administrative Centre of the Black Sea Euroregion
VARNA (Warna, Варна, Oδησσός, Odessos, Stalin), the sixts venue for the EVROVIZION project, is located on the eastern border of Europe. It is the third-largest city in Bulgaria and the largest city and seaside resort on the Bulgarian Black Sea coast. In the sixth century BC, Varna was founded under the name Odessos, and thereafter frequently became a flourishing trade centre under various different rulers and systems, as well as a crossroads between countries and continents. Numerous cultures and religions have shaped the city over the centuries, giving it its multi-ethnic diversity that has made it one of Bulgaria’s most important economic, educational and cultural centres right down to the present day.
CITY VIEWS
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The Park-Monument of the Bulgarian Soviet Friendship on Turna Tepe Hill © Photo: Boyan Lyubenov -
The Central Entrance of the Sea Garden © Photo: Boyan Lyubenov -
Mother of God Cathedral © Photo: Boyan Lyubenov
