2018

RELAY

RESIDENCY AND EXCHANGE IN COLLABORATION WITH KUNSTHOCHSCHULE MAINZ AND NATIONAL ART ACADEMY, SOFIA

Sofia and Mainz

2018 – 2019

In Spring 2018, RELAY invited art students to participate in a material exchange and respond to images and objects in a relay of pooled matter sent by mail between Germany and Bulgaria. No directions or conditions or knowledge were presupposed.
Special: Institutions

NOT-PERIPHERAL

COLLABORATION WITH SIX ART SPACES

ONLINE & DIFFERENT VENUES

THROUGHOUT 2018

Swimming Pool participates in the NOT-PERIPHERAL PROJECT, an Instagram-based project dedicated to the European and Mediterranean experimental artspaces outside the biggest art centers.
NATURA MORTA

AN EXHIBITION AND PERFORMANCE BY MLADEN ALEXIEV

DNK AND SWIMMING POOL, SOFIA

23 NOVEMBER – 1 DECEMBER 2018

NATURA MORTA is a project by the theatre director Mladen Alexiev consisted by two parallel events – an exhibition and a performance, in which the author expands his interest in narratives and hybrid presentation formats. NATURA MORTA is the third piece in the frame of the long-term research project Splendor Solis.
A RAT

A SOLO EXHIBITION BY VERA PALME

19 OCTOBER – 18 NOVEMBER 2018

A rat is walking into a bar to debunk a joke. Coming from the Twilight Zone it is living between structures, inhabiting shade. A story within a story. We know that speaking out is never the end, but always a beginning. Replenishing the currency of information, it is followed by a process of questioning where people are mute, proof is lost and sources confused. It has consequences. Knowledge sinks in a fear-driven, conspiracy-led hysterical reality mainly building upon distorting communicative structures of mass-media. This is where a rat has always been an aggressor and vice versa: a stimulant. When sources are forever dislocated, what then belongs to this world?
VOICE 1/5: ON TRADITION

A PERFORMANCE WORK BY SNEJANKA MIHAYLOVA IN Collaboration with Art in General

ART IN GENERAL, NEW YORK

28 AUGUST 2018

Art in General (New York) and Swimming Pool present *Voice 1/5: On Tradition*, a performance work by Snejanka Mihaylova. This New Commission is curated by Viktoria Draganova as part of Art in General’s International Collaborations Program and marks the artist’s first-ever performance in New York.
CREATING SPACES

CURATORIAL SCHOOL 2018

How can we foster independent curatorial activity? How do we share our knowledge and experience as well as internationalize our practice? What are the institutions our society needs today?
POOL PAINTINGS PART I

A SOLO EXHIBITION BY NAVINE G. KHAN-DOSSOS

13/14 JULY – 26 AUGUST 2018

Pool Paintings Part I is both a figurative response to the site-specificity of Swimming Pool and an abstract flight of imagination. It began with a conversation, and Navine G. Khan-Dossos’ request to explore the possibility of returning the pool to its former glory: a water-filled hole perched on the rooftop of a building in central Sofia. But as the proposed insurance and engineering costs and permissions mounted up, it became clear that such a large undertaking would remain within the realms of imagination.
ACOUSTIC STAGE

A LECTURE AND WORKSHOP BY SNEJANKA MIHAYLOVA AND LUBOMIR DRAGANOV

28 JUNE 2018

Acoustic stage is a continuation of the dialogue between Snejanka Mihaylova (philosopher, writer and publisher The Last Books) and Lubomir Draganov (psychologist, visual artist) for the conception of a hybrid format between research and performative practice which can be useful both as an aesthetic framework for an experience and as an educational model.
AN OBJECT OF CONCERN

А SOLO EXHIBITION BY MARTIN PENEV

17 MAY – 24 JUNE 2018

We all shine and we long. And we will long. But it seems as only through a polished surface we are ready to show life. Gold is the aura of the inner good and prouder out. Is this knighthood in media time or the cinematic reality of a sign, devoid of time and meaning, like optimal marketing fed by narcissism? A flag for a doomed expectation, but festive in its self-oblivion.
SOFIA ART MAP

INSTITUTIONS AND INDEPENDENT SPACES

2018 - ongoing

Sofia Art Map is a project driven by the desire to present an imaginative, growing, versatile, vibrant, cultural scene. This project is the fruit of love for a city we live in and want to share with everyone who visits us.
RADICAL POETICS

ARTIST TALKS As part of the the exhibition Shifting Layers at Sofia City Art gallery

SOFIA CITY ART GALLERY

20/21 JANUARY 2018

Viktoria Draganova was invited to curate a talks program within the exhibition Shifting Layers. Young Art at the Museum, curated by Vladiya Mihaylova, at the Sofia City Art Gallery. Below you find the text conceptualizing the program, which will be also published at the catalogue accompanying the exhibition.