The aim of the creative workshop is to involve anyone who has an interest in exploring their attitude towards and perception of art by utilizing a basic classical approach such as still life drawing. Through the principle of “pass it on”, we share a common artistic experience, and together we will observe, feel, create, and position in context.
There are no age or skill level requirements; we want to expand the group as much as possible, and we believe that the more different we are, the more enriching the experience will be.
The educational conditions in Bulgaria are a topic of Ina Valentinova‘s artistic practice,and her work is often a reaction to the national context: Bulgaria is the country
with the lowest budget for education and the highest illiteracy rate in the European Union (41 %), and almost a third of the students in the province regions do not attend school at all and fail to graduate. It is possible to implement more pedagogical programs in various formal and informal institutions if they start perceiving education as the missing link in their practice and as a response to the serious poverty statistics in the country; contemporary art institutions could apply a creative poetic approach towards our needs for a better understanding of the world around us.
Ina Valentinova is a contemporary artist working in various mediums, currently a PhD student in Methodology of Teaching Fine Arts in Veliko Tarnovo, Bulgaria. While acquiring her BA of Fine Arts and Textile Art and MA in Art Therapy and Art Teaching, she studied in various academies in Bulgaria, Romania, Poland and The Netherlands. She also has a postgraduate degree in Solution-Focused Brief Psychotherapy. Her education in Sofia was supported by alternative courses such as the Curatorial School of Swimming Pool and the School for Young Contemporary Artists organized by the Institute of Contemporary Art - Sofia. As part of her practice, she currently works as an art therapist for the International Organization on Migration, Bulgaria and was previously an art assistant at the Hip Hip Zine Library, Sofia. She works, teaches and creates workshops in the fields of textile art, street art, painting and printmaking. Her artwork displays her interest in various topics, mainly exploring the concepts of animism, relations between people, and nature and spirituality. She creates bright, vibrant images that suggest a soft utopian state; however, they are caused by a strong frustration with the current state of global politics and the environment. Nature in its different forms is the force that moves the artist's fantastic narratives. There is a mixture of cultural, anthropological and religious references in her prints and drawings, paintings and weavings. The artist shares her sincere spiritual revelations in order to inspire observers to reflect on images from their own personal imagination.
