"Stories with pools"
interventions by Slavena Petkova and Iskra Prodanova
interventions by Slavena Petkova and Iskra Prodanova
Curated by Victoria Draganova and Zheni Decheva from Swimming Pool, with the support of ReBonkers and Talyana Association and presented within the framework of BUNA: Forum for Contemporary Art Varna - a decentralized festival in support of the contemporary visual scene.
Text Victoria Draganova:
For Iskra Prodanova, the starting point is the fact that Hoffman will never dock at the port of Varna, to which she responds with many black rubber ducks released into the pool, a clear reference to at least a few international protest movements of recent years, starting with the giant inflatable rubber ducks involved in the 2016 protests in Brazil during a demand for the impeachment of then president Dilma Rousseff. The ducks also became a symbol of protest in Russia in 2017, when it was revealed that then-Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev had multiple luxury properties. In 2020, the yellow duck flooded the streets of Bangkok, and a user on the social networking site Weibo edited a famous footage of the 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown, replacing tanks with ducks. Iskra's work is a commentary on nihilism, apathy and self-censorship in Bulgaria, where there are still and in spite of everything those black ducks that have reached the Boon and perhaps feeding the hope of one day becoming yellow?
For Iskra Prodanova, the starting point is the fact that Hoffman will never dock at the port of Varna, to which she responds with many black rubber ducks released into the pool, a clear reference to at least a few international protest movements of recent years, starting with the giant inflatable rubber ducks involved in the 2016 protests in Brazil during a demand for the impeachment of then president Dilma Rousseff. The ducks also became a symbol of protest in Russia in 2017, when it was revealed that then-Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev had multiple luxury properties. In 2020, the yellow duck flooded the streets of Bangkok, and a user on the social networking site Weibo edited a famous footage of the 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown, replacing tanks with ducks. Iskra's work is a commentary on nihilism, apathy and self-censorship in Bulgaria, where there are still and in spite of everything those black ducks that have reached the Boon and perhaps feeding the hope of one day becoming yellow?
Slavena Petkova, on the other hand, chooses individual reactions from online civic forums or press releases related to water in Varna, the conflicts around the destruction of cultural heritage and the characteristic features of the bath culture. Fluttering on towels, people's multi-layered comments will create a shared space of happiness we associate with water and its places, springs and institutions, but also with the trauma of its loss, increasingly frequent and painful.
Both interventions contain additional surprising, unexpected moments. And there are some third stories yet to emerge, because that's what always happens at the Moonlight Pool Bar & Restaurant, the most hedonistic place on this Black Sea coast, the most escapist - and therefore perhaps the most eternal.
> Iskra Prodanova is a choreographer by training, but sees herself as a multidisciplinary artist. She is passionate about transforming public environments into a playground for art that comments on social issues and questions what is allowed through practices based on the double condition of seeing and being seen. Iskra is the founder and artistic director of the platform Moving Body Festival contemporary dance festival.
> Slavena Petkova deals with multidisciplinary art. Her works use the methods of artistic research, ecological and ethical fashion design to tell the story of socio-cultural phenomena that excite her. She graduated from the Royal Academy of Art in The Hague and currently continues her practice in Varna, where she lives and teaches.
> Swimming Pool is an art space created in 2015 in the city Sofia.
