Curator: Dr. Szabolcs Süli-Zakar
Sofia Arsenal – Museum of Contemporary Art
‘What art is can neither be grasped nor determined—one can only feel it.’ Joseph Tasnádi
Joseph Tasnádi’s exhibition is a review of his post-2010 oeuvre, consisting of installations, interventions, and digital experiments, along with some earlier drawings. His uniquely resonant lyrical installations, as well as the intellectual and sensitively poeticised objects, enter a dialogue with each other and start weaving an associative network of additional meanings.
A version of the exhibition took place in 2022 at the MODEM Center for Modern and Contemporary Art, Debrecen, Hungary.
Tasnádi’s creative career incorporates an array of artistic disciplines and genres, yet his writings, drawings, digital experiments, installations, and interventions form an extraordinarily coherent and organic whole. They illustrate poetic and artistic aspects of a profound experience. Tasnádi seeks his inspiration, not inside but outside, art. He finds things. Things that spontaneously connect themselves with metacontents, such as hope, memory, death, the impossibility of communication, paradox, place, time, presence, or of their lack.
At the same time, he examines the relationships between technology and art. In recent years, his work has focused on the bonds between man and machine, the relationship of technology, metaphoric perspective, and poetic thinking.
He thematises important questions with hybrid contemporary artistic methods in which (scientific) research, (artistic) elaboration/reflection and the demand for poetic synthesis are deeply inter-connected.

The Palace
Artists: Boryana Petkova & Iskra Blagoeva, Boryana Rossa, Katya Dimova, Krasimira Butseva, Monika Popova, nada ree, Natalia Jordanova, Neda Milanova, Oksana Kazmina, Rayna Teneva, Sophia Grancharova, Zelikha Shoja.
Curator: Svetlana Kuyumdzhieva
Design: Viktoriya Staykova
The exhibition presents the results from the BFW’s open call for the Fund for art projects by women artists in 2022. The female authors and their concepts were chosen among over 200 candidates in the competition. The expert jury consists of the curators Svetlana Kuyumdzhieva, Daniela Radeva, Stefka Tsaneva, Margarita Dorovska, as well as Gergana Kutseva, Dobromira Terpesheva, and Rosena Ivanova from the BFW team. Invited to respond to the state of emergency, challenges, and urgency in this day and age, the women artists react with varied intensity, character, style, and a great amount of sincerity. Contrasts and similarities between them, in the choice of media, their candor, turning towards their inner selves, and sharing personal stories, experiences, and memories all create a common environment of empathy and reciprocation. What inevitably connects them is exposing stereotypes about women’s social role and position. They are also connected by the needle as a tool chosen by most of them, but also as a byword for that patriarchal image of the woman holding her needlework. An image rooted in the consciousness of generations on end, which all these women defy.
The story of the needle resembles a woman’s story, as confirmed by many feminist theorists. However, it does not follow a specific linearity, but is ambiguous and controversial, simultaneously a story about isolation, reassurance, and seclusion, but also about interacting with the world and opposition. The needle is the symbol of the skill passed on in the family, over generations, from grandmothers and mothers, knowing what it is to be a woman, the natural attraction towards the warmth of the fabric, and intimate interaction. The process of embroidery and sewing is story-telling. It encompasses the whole patience for bringing the threads together and passing on memories and messages. The needle as a means to create and to mend, as one of the symbols of coziness, of childhood memories, is fragile, but sharp.
The project of the Fund for Artistic Projects by Women was made possible thanks to the trust and financial support of Veronika Puncheva, Lachezar Tsotzorkov Foundation, Legrand, Ubisoft, ALD Automative, as well as with the logistical support of the Institute for Contemporary Art – Sofia and Credo Bonum Gallery. The opening event is hosted by Freixenet.

Nicholas Roerich (1874–1947) is widely known not only as an artist, but also as a writer, archaeologist, scientist, public figure, philosopher and enlightener. He spent decades of his life touring and exploring the Himalayas, which also became his home. In the 1930s and 1940s, the artist studied these mountains in a series of landscapes and, investing his spiritual insights, reflected the beauty and mysticism of the region, capturing the picturesque scenery in the changing seasons and at different times of the day.
The National Gallery owns some 250 works by the painter, which were donated to the Bulgarian state in the late 1970s by his son, Svetoslav Roerich. The present exhibition includes 30 landscapes that take us to places whose mystique and mysteriousness are visible to the spiritually enlightened.
Among Nicholas Roerich’s indisputable merits was the initiation of Pax Cultura—the Treaty on the Protection of Artistic and Scientific Institutions and Historic Monuments (The Roerich Pact). This Treaty for the protection of cultural monuments was signed in Washington, in the presence of US President Franklin Roosevelt, on 15 April 1935, by all the member-state plenipotentiaries of the Pan American Union.
It envisaged that all sites over which the Banner of Peace was flown—museums, universities, architectural monuments, among others—should be considered as neutral, international territory, and with the protection of cultural heritage both in time of war and in time of peace to be regulated.

The ‘Atlantis’ exhibition is an adventure of the senses, an open door to the notion of reality and the past, a bold and dreamy inducement to encounter the unknown or the non-existent, even if only in one pictorial world.
Nina Ruseva created most of these paintings specifically for the occasion. The extreme, exciting emotional experience physically separates us from the reality surrounding us and conveys us to distant worlds. Peru, the Antarctic, Perperikon, or the lost lands of Atlantis—all unfold before the eyes of the viewer, refracted through the personal emotion and sensibility of the artist, through the rich imagination and curiosity towards the unknown that she materialises in her painting.
Nina Ruseva’s landscapes occupy the boundary between abstraction and reality—effulgent and temperamental, creating a sense of dynamism and, at the same time, bringing tranquillity to a desolate space dominated by natural forms. The large formats allow for a bold handling of form, colour, and large strokes thickly applied to the canvas.
The bright palette and frequent use of dark contours are distinguishing features of Nina Ruseva’s figurative language, reinforcing the feeling of the illusoriness of natural scenes.

Multimedia exposition dedicated to 150 years since the death of the Apostle of Freedom, Vasil Levski.
Using holographic technology on a large-scale video wall, a re-enactment of the trial of the Apostle of Freedom is displayed, and significant moments of his life are brought back to life. Veselin Plachkov portrays Vasil Levski. Actors Ivan Trenev, Lyubov Pavlova, Rumen Ivanov, Alexander Georgiev, Biser Marinov and Nikola Dodov are also participants. Nelly Dimitrova is the screenwriter; Dimitar Gochev, the director; Simeon Parashkevov and Dimitar Gochev, cinematographers; Atanas Gendov, composer; Pirina Veselinova, Evgeni Gospodinov and the Svetoglas Quartet, musical performers; sensor studio, animation and mapping; Hristo Karagyozov, audio mixing and post-production; Ivo Milev, creative producer; and Tsvetoslav Borisov, executive producer.
The National Gallery and the Vasil Levski All-Bulgarian Committee created the exposition, with the financial support of the Ministry of Culture and donations by the Lachezar Tsotsorkov Foundation, Kaufland Bulgaria EOOD, Aurubis Bulgaria JSC, Vazovski Machinery Works JSC – Sopot, and patriotic Bulgarians.
Kvadrat 500, entrance at 95, Vasil Levski Blvd., Sofia
Opening hours:
Tuesday–Sunday, 10 a.m.– 6 p.m.
The screenings are 30 minutes away, starting at 10 am
Bookings for groups of up to 20 people: +359 879 834 025
FREE ADMISSION

Museum of Art from the Socialist Period
Under the motto ‘Sameness and Semblance’, 454 artists from 78 countries submitted works to the 12th International Photo Festival—PHODAR Biennial, demonstrating the great interest of artists from all over the world. The international jury selected 274 printed copies, presenting 21 artists from 12 countries, for inclusion in the exhibition. Three prizes were awarded—the grand prix, debut, and humanistic photography.
The regulations for this festival edition were distributed virtually via 44 electronic portals of national associations, specialist educational institutions, and media, placing the biennial among the leading events in world photography and almost doubling the number of participants when compared to previous years.
On 8 June, at 5 p.m., a theoretical seminar on the topic of ‘Sameness and Semblance’ will be held in the exhibition gallery, to be attended by experts in various disciplines of the humanities and the visual arts at St Kliment Ohridski Sofia University, the National Academy for Theatre and Film Arts (NATFA), and other higher educational institutions, galleries and NGOs, along with students, photo enthusiasts and established visual artists. On 22 June, at 4 p.m., a tour of the exposition will be organised for those who wish to learn more.
The PHODAR Foundation was established in 1999 to specialise in the visual arts while focusing on photography, the principal output being the International Photo Festival—the PHODAR Biennial. Its editions are thematic; photographic series and cycles are accepted. The jury consists of 9–11 experts in the genres of photography, the visual arts, and a variety of disciplines in the humanities.
The festival is made possible with the financial support of the Sofia Culture Programme.

Curator: Dr. Szabolcs Süli-Zakar
Sofia Arsenal – Museum of Contemporary Art
‘What art is can neither be grasped nor determined—one can only feel it.’ Joseph Tasnádi
Joseph Tasnádi’s exhibition is a review of his post-2010 oeuvre, consisting of installations, interventions, and digital experiments, along with some earlier drawings. His uniquely resonant lyrical installations, as well as the intellectual and sensitively poeticised objects, enter a dialogue with each other and start weaving an associative network of additional meanings.
A version of the exhibition took place in 2022 at the MODEM Center for Modern and Contemporary Art, Debrecen, Hungary.
Tasnádi’s creative career incorporates an array of artistic disciplines and genres, yet his writings, drawings, digital experiments, installations, and interventions form an extraordinarily coherent and organic whole. They illustrate poetic and artistic aspects of a profound experience. Tasnádi seeks his inspiration, not inside but outside, art. He finds things. Things that spontaneously connect themselves with metacontents, such as hope, memory, death, the impossibility of communication, paradox, place, time, presence, or of their lack.
At the same time, he examines the relationships between technology and art. In recent years, his work has focused on the bonds between man and machine, the relationship of technology, metaphoric perspective, and poetic thinking.
He thematises important questions with hybrid contemporary artistic methods in which (scientific) research, (artistic) elaboration/reflection and the demand for poetic synthesis are deeply inter-connected.

The Palace
Artists: Boryana Petkova & Iskra Blagoeva, Boryana Rossa, Katya Dimova, Krasimira Butseva, Monika Popova, nada ree, Natalia Jordanova, Neda Milanova, Oksana Kazmina, Rayna Teneva, Sophia Grancharova, Zelikha Shoja.
Curator: Svetlana Kuyumdzhieva
Design: Viktoriya Staykova
The exhibition presents the results from the BFW’s open call for the Fund for art projects by women artists in 2022. The female authors and their concepts were chosen among over 200 candidates in the competition. The expert jury consists of the curators Svetlana Kuyumdzhieva, Daniela Radeva, Stefka Tsaneva, Margarita Dorovska, as well as Gergana Kutseva, Dobromira Terpesheva, and Rosena Ivanova from the BFW team. Invited to respond to the state of emergency, challenges, and urgency in this day and age, the women artists react with varied intensity, character, style, and a great amount of sincerity. Contrasts and similarities between them, in the choice of media, their candor, turning towards their inner selves, and sharing personal stories, experiences, and memories all create a common environment of empathy and reciprocation. What inevitably connects them is exposing stereotypes about women’s social role and position. They are also connected by the needle as a tool chosen by most of them, but also as a byword for that patriarchal image of the woman holding her needlework. An image rooted in the consciousness of generations on end, which all these women defy.
The story of the needle resembles a woman’s story, as confirmed by many feminist theorists. However, it does not follow a specific linearity, but is ambiguous and controversial, simultaneously a story about isolation, reassurance, and seclusion, but also about interacting with the world and opposition. The needle is the symbol of the skill passed on in the family, over generations, from grandmothers and mothers, knowing what it is to be a woman, the natural attraction towards the warmth of the fabric, and intimate interaction. The process of embroidery and sewing is story-telling. It encompasses the whole patience for bringing the threads together and passing on memories and messages. The needle as a means to create and to mend, as one of the symbols of coziness, of childhood memories, is fragile, but sharp.
The project of the Fund for Artistic Projects by Women was made possible thanks to the trust and financial support of Veronika Puncheva, Lachezar Tsotzorkov Foundation, Legrand, Ubisoft, ALD Automative, as well as with the logistical support of the Institute for Contemporary Art – Sofia and Credo Bonum Gallery. The opening event is hosted by Freixenet.

Nicholas Roerich (1874–1947) is widely known not only as an artist, but also as a writer, archaeologist, scientist, public figure, philosopher and enlightener. He spent decades of his life touring and exploring the Himalayas, which also became his home. In the 1930s and 1940s, the artist studied these mountains in a series of landscapes and, investing his spiritual insights, reflected the beauty and mysticism of the region, capturing the picturesque scenery in the changing seasons and at different times of the day.
The National Gallery owns some 250 works by the painter, which were donated to the Bulgarian state in the late 1970s by his son, Svetoslav Roerich. The present exhibition includes 30 landscapes that take us to places whose mystique and mysteriousness are visible to the spiritually enlightened.
Among Nicholas Roerich’s indisputable merits was the initiation of Pax Cultura—the Treaty on the Protection of Artistic and Scientific Institutions and Historic Monuments (The Roerich Pact). This Treaty for the protection of cultural monuments was signed in Washington, in the presence of US President Franklin Roosevelt, on 15 April 1935, by all the member-state plenipotentiaries of the Pan American Union.
It envisaged that all sites over which the Banner of Peace was flown—museums, universities, architectural monuments, among others—should be considered as neutral, international territory, and with the protection of cultural heritage both in time of war and in time of peace to be regulated.

The ‘Atlantis’ exhibition is an adventure of the senses, an open door to the notion of reality and the past, a bold and dreamy inducement to encounter the unknown or the non-existent, even if only in one pictorial world.
Nina Ruseva created most of these paintings specifically for the occasion. The extreme, exciting emotional experience physically separates us from the reality surrounding us and conveys us to distant worlds. Peru, the Antarctic, Perperikon, or the lost lands of Atlantis—all unfold before the eyes of the viewer, refracted through the personal emotion and sensibility of the artist, through the rich imagination and curiosity towards the unknown that she materialises in her painting.
Nina Ruseva’s landscapes occupy the boundary between abstraction and reality—effulgent and temperamental, creating a sense of dynamism and, at the same time, bringing tranquillity to a desolate space dominated by natural forms. The large formats allow for a bold handling of form, colour, and large strokes thickly applied to the canvas.
The bright palette and frequent use of dark contours are distinguishing features of Nina Ruseva’s figurative language, reinforcing the feeling of the illusoriness of natural scenes.

Multimedia exposition dedicated to 150 years since the death of the Apostle of Freedom, Vasil Levski.
Using holographic technology on a large-scale video wall, a re-enactment of the trial of the Apostle of Freedom is displayed, and significant moments of his life are brought back to life. Veselin Plachkov portrays Vasil Levski. Actors Ivan Trenev, Lyubov Pavlova, Rumen Ivanov, Alexander Georgiev, Biser Marinov and Nikola Dodov are also participants. Nelly Dimitrova is the screenwriter; Dimitar Gochev, the director; Simeon Parashkevov and Dimitar Gochev, cinematographers; Atanas Gendov, composer; Pirina Veselinova, Evgeni Gospodinov and the Svetoglas Quartet, musical performers; sensor studio, animation and mapping; Hristo Karagyozov, audio mixing and post-production; Ivo Milev, creative producer; and Tsvetoslav Borisov, executive producer.
The National Gallery and the Vasil Levski All-Bulgarian Committee created the exposition, with the financial support of the Ministry of Culture and donations by the Lachezar Tsotsorkov Foundation, Kaufland Bulgaria EOOD, Aurubis Bulgaria JSC, Vazovski Machinery Works JSC – Sopot, and patriotic Bulgarians.
Kvadrat 500, entrance at 95, Vasil Levski Blvd., Sofia
Opening hours:
Tuesday–Sunday, 10 a.m.– 6 p.m.
The screenings are 30 minutes away, starting at 10 am
Bookings for groups of up to 20 people: +359 879 834 025
FREE ADMISSION

Museum of Art from the Socialist Period
Under the motto ‘Sameness and Semblance’, 454 artists from 78 countries submitted works to the 12th International Photo Festival—PHODAR Biennial, demonstrating the great interest of artists from all over the world. The international jury selected 274 printed copies, presenting 21 artists from 12 countries, for inclusion in the exhibition. Three prizes were awarded—the grand prix, debut, and humanistic photography.
The regulations for this festival edition were distributed virtually via 44 electronic portals of national associations, specialist educational institutions, and media, placing the biennial among the leading events in world photography and almost doubling the number of participants when compared to previous years.
On 8 June, at 5 p.m., a theoretical seminar on the topic of ‘Sameness and Semblance’ will be held in the exhibition gallery, to be attended by experts in various disciplines of the humanities and the visual arts at St Kliment Ohridski Sofia University, the National Academy for Theatre and Film Arts (NATFA), and other higher educational institutions, galleries and NGOs, along with students, photo enthusiasts and established visual artists. On 22 June, at 4 p.m., a tour of the exposition will be organised for those who wish to learn more.
The PHODAR Foundation was established in 1999 to specialise in the visual arts while focusing on photography, the principal output being the International Photo Festival—the PHODAR Biennial. Its editions are thematic; photographic series and cycles are accepted. The jury consists of 9–11 experts in the genres of photography, the visual arts, and a variety of disciplines in the humanities.
The festival is made possible with the financial support of the Sofia Culture Programme.

Curator: Dr. Szabolcs Süli-Zakar
Sofia Arsenal – Museum of Contemporary Art
‘What art is can neither be grasped nor determined—one can only feel it.’ Joseph Tasnádi
Joseph Tasnádi’s exhibition is a review of his post-2010 oeuvre, consisting of installations, interventions, and digital experiments, along with some earlier drawings. His uniquely resonant lyrical installations, as well as the intellectual and sensitively poeticised objects, enter a dialogue with each other and start weaving an associative network of additional meanings.
A version of the exhibition took place in 2022 at the MODEM Center for Modern and Contemporary Art, Debrecen, Hungary.
Tasnádi’s creative career incorporates an array of artistic disciplines and genres, yet his writings, drawings, digital experiments, installations, and interventions form an extraordinarily coherent and organic whole. They illustrate poetic and artistic aspects of a profound experience. Tasnádi seeks his inspiration, not inside but outside, art. He finds things. Things that spontaneously connect themselves with metacontents, such as hope, memory, death, the impossibility of communication, paradox, place, time, presence, or of their lack.
At the same time, he examines the relationships between technology and art. In recent years, his work has focused on the bonds between man and machine, the relationship of technology, metaphoric perspective, and poetic thinking.
He thematises important questions with hybrid contemporary artistic methods in which (scientific) research, (artistic) elaboration/reflection and the demand for poetic synthesis are deeply inter-connected.

The Palace
Artists: Boryana Petkova & Iskra Blagoeva, Boryana Rossa, Katya Dimova, Krasimira Butseva, Monika Popova, nada ree, Natalia Jordanova, Neda Milanova, Oksana Kazmina, Rayna Teneva, Sophia Grancharova, Zelikha Shoja.
Curator: Svetlana Kuyumdzhieva
Design: Viktoriya Staykova
The exhibition presents the results from the BFW’s open call for the Fund for art projects by women artists in 2022. The female authors and their concepts were chosen among over 200 candidates in the competition. The expert jury consists of the curators Svetlana Kuyumdzhieva, Daniela Radeva, Stefka Tsaneva, Margarita Dorovska, as well as Gergana Kutseva, Dobromira Terpesheva, and Rosena Ivanova from the BFW team. Invited to respond to the state of emergency, challenges, and urgency in this day and age, the women artists react with varied intensity, character, style, and a great amount of sincerity. Contrasts and similarities between them, in the choice of media, their candor, turning towards their inner selves, and sharing personal stories, experiences, and memories all create a common environment of empathy and reciprocation. What inevitably connects them is exposing stereotypes about women’s social role and position. They are also connected by the needle as a tool chosen by most of them, but also as a byword for that patriarchal image of the woman holding her needlework. An image rooted in the consciousness of generations on end, which all these women defy.
The story of the needle resembles a woman’s story, as confirmed by many feminist theorists. However, it does not follow a specific linearity, but is ambiguous and controversial, simultaneously a story about isolation, reassurance, and seclusion, but also about interacting with the world and opposition. The needle is the symbol of the skill passed on in the family, over generations, from grandmothers and mothers, knowing what it is to be a woman, the natural attraction towards the warmth of the fabric, and intimate interaction. The process of embroidery and sewing is story-telling. It encompasses the whole patience for bringing the threads together and passing on memories and messages. The needle as a means to create and to mend, as one of the symbols of coziness, of childhood memories, is fragile, but sharp.
The project of the Fund for Artistic Projects by Women was made possible thanks to the trust and financial support of Veronika Puncheva, Lachezar Tsotzorkov Foundation, Legrand, Ubisoft, ALD Automative, as well as with the logistical support of the Institute for Contemporary Art – Sofia and Credo Bonum Gallery. The opening event is hosted by Freixenet.

Nicholas Roerich (1874–1947) is widely known not only as an artist, but also as a writer, archaeologist, scientist, public figure, philosopher and enlightener. He spent decades of his life touring and exploring the Himalayas, which also became his home. In the 1930s and 1940s, the artist studied these mountains in a series of landscapes and, investing his spiritual insights, reflected the beauty and mysticism of the region, capturing the picturesque scenery in the changing seasons and at different times of the day.
The National Gallery owns some 250 works by the painter, which were donated to the Bulgarian state in the late 1970s by his son, Svetoslav Roerich. The present exhibition includes 30 landscapes that take us to places whose mystique and mysteriousness are visible to the spiritually enlightened.
Among Nicholas Roerich’s indisputable merits was the initiation of Pax Cultura—the Treaty on the Protection of Artistic and Scientific Institutions and Historic Monuments (The Roerich Pact). This Treaty for the protection of cultural monuments was signed in Washington, in the presence of US President Franklin Roosevelt, on 15 April 1935, by all the member-state plenipotentiaries of the Pan American Union.
It envisaged that all sites over which the Banner of Peace was flown—museums, universities, architectural monuments, among others—should be considered as neutral, international territory, and with the protection of cultural heritage both in time of war and in time of peace to be regulated.

The ‘Atlantis’ exhibition is an adventure of the senses, an open door to the notion of reality and the past, a bold and dreamy inducement to encounter the unknown or the non-existent, even if only in one pictorial world.
Nina Ruseva created most of these paintings specifically for the occasion. The extreme, exciting emotional experience physically separates us from the reality surrounding us and conveys us to distant worlds. Peru, the Antarctic, Perperikon, or the lost lands of Atlantis—all unfold before the eyes of the viewer, refracted through the personal emotion and sensibility of the artist, through the rich imagination and curiosity towards the unknown that she materialises in her painting.
Nina Ruseva’s landscapes occupy the boundary between abstraction and reality—effulgent and temperamental, creating a sense of dynamism and, at the same time, bringing tranquillity to a desolate space dominated by natural forms. The large formats allow for a bold handling of form, colour, and large strokes thickly applied to the canvas.
The bright palette and frequent use of dark contours are distinguishing features of Nina Ruseva’s figurative language, reinforcing the feeling of the illusoriness of natural scenes.

Multimedia exposition dedicated to 150 years since the death of the Apostle of Freedom, Vasil Levski.
Using holographic technology on a large-scale video wall, a re-enactment of the trial of the Apostle of Freedom is displayed, and significant moments of his life are brought back to life. Veselin Plachkov portrays Vasil Levski. Actors Ivan Trenev, Lyubov Pavlova, Rumen Ivanov, Alexander Georgiev, Biser Marinov and Nikola Dodov are also participants. Nelly Dimitrova is the screenwriter; Dimitar Gochev, the director; Simeon Parashkevov and Dimitar Gochev, cinematographers; Atanas Gendov, composer; Pirina Veselinova, Evgeni Gospodinov and the Svetoglas Quartet, musical performers; sensor studio, animation and mapping; Hristo Karagyozov, audio mixing and post-production; Ivo Milev, creative producer; and Tsvetoslav Borisov, executive producer.
The National Gallery and the Vasil Levski All-Bulgarian Committee created the exposition, with the financial support of the Ministry of Culture and donations by the Lachezar Tsotsorkov Foundation, Kaufland Bulgaria EOOD, Aurubis Bulgaria JSC, Vazovski Machinery Works JSC – Sopot, and patriotic Bulgarians.
Kvadrat 500, entrance at 95, Vasil Levski Blvd., Sofia
Opening hours:
Tuesday–Sunday, 10 a.m.– 6 p.m.
The screenings are 30 minutes away, starting at 10 am
Bookings for groups of up to 20 people: +359 879 834 025
FREE ADMISSION

Bulgaria Concert Hall

Museum of Art from the Socialist Period
Under the motto ‘Sameness and Semblance’, 454 artists from 78 countries submitted works to the 12th International Photo Festival—PHODAR Biennial, demonstrating the great interest of artists from all over the world. The international jury selected 274 printed copies, presenting 21 artists from 12 countries, for inclusion in the exhibition. Three prizes were awarded—the grand prix, debut, and humanistic photography.
The regulations for this festival edition were distributed virtually via 44 electronic portals of national associations, specialist educational institutions, and media, placing the biennial among the leading events in world photography and almost doubling the number of participants when compared to previous years.
On 8 June, at 5 p.m., a theoretical seminar on the topic of ‘Sameness and Semblance’ will be held in the exhibition gallery, to be attended by experts in various disciplines of the humanities and the visual arts at St Kliment Ohridski Sofia University, the National Academy for Theatre and Film Arts (NATFA), and other higher educational institutions, galleries and NGOs, along with students, photo enthusiasts and established visual artists. On 22 June, at 4 p.m., a tour of the exposition will be organised for those who wish to learn more.
The PHODAR Foundation was established in 1999 to specialise in the visual arts while focusing on photography, the principal output being the International Photo Festival—the PHODAR Biennial. Its editions are thematic; photographic series and cycles are accepted. The jury consists of 9–11 experts in the genres of photography, the visual arts, and a variety of disciplines in the humanities.
The festival is made possible with the financial support of the Sofia Culture Programme.

Curator: Dr. Szabolcs Süli-Zakar
Sofia Arsenal – Museum of Contemporary Art
‘What art is can neither be grasped nor determined—one can only feel it.’ Joseph Tasnádi
Joseph Tasnádi’s exhibition is a review of his post-2010 oeuvre, consisting of installations, interventions, and digital experiments, along with some earlier drawings. His uniquely resonant lyrical installations, as well as the intellectual and sensitively poeticised objects, enter a dialogue with each other and start weaving an associative network of additional meanings.
A version of the exhibition took place in 2022 at the MODEM Center for Modern and Contemporary Art, Debrecen, Hungary.
Tasnádi’s creative career incorporates an array of artistic disciplines and genres, yet his writings, drawings, digital experiments, installations, and interventions form an extraordinarily coherent and organic whole. They illustrate poetic and artistic aspects of a profound experience. Tasnádi seeks his inspiration, not inside but outside, art. He finds things. Things that spontaneously connect themselves with metacontents, such as hope, memory, death, the impossibility of communication, paradox, place, time, presence, or of their lack.
At the same time, he examines the relationships between technology and art. In recent years, his work has focused on the bonds between man and machine, the relationship of technology, metaphoric perspective, and poetic thinking.
He thematises important questions with hybrid contemporary artistic methods in which (scientific) research, (artistic) elaboration/reflection and the demand for poetic synthesis are deeply inter-connected.

The Palace
Artists: Boryana Petkova & Iskra Blagoeva, Boryana Rossa, Katya Dimova, Krasimira Butseva, Monika Popova, nada ree, Natalia Jordanova, Neda Milanova, Oksana Kazmina, Rayna Teneva, Sophia Grancharova, Zelikha Shoja.
Curator: Svetlana Kuyumdzhieva
Design: Viktoriya Staykova
The exhibition presents the results from the BFW’s open call for the Fund for art projects by women artists in 2022. The female authors and their concepts were chosen among over 200 candidates in the competition. The expert jury consists of the curators Svetlana Kuyumdzhieva, Daniela Radeva, Stefka Tsaneva, Margarita Dorovska, as well as Gergana Kutseva, Dobromira Terpesheva, and Rosena Ivanova from the BFW team. Invited to respond to the state of emergency, challenges, and urgency in this day and age, the women artists react with varied intensity, character, style, and a great amount of sincerity. Contrasts and similarities between them, in the choice of media, their candor, turning towards their inner selves, and sharing personal stories, experiences, and memories all create a common environment of empathy and reciprocation. What inevitably connects them is exposing stereotypes about women’s social role and position. They are also connected by the needle as a tool chosen by most of them, but also as a byword for that patriarchal image of the woman holding her needlework. An image rooted in the consciousness of generations on end, which all these women defy.
The story of the needle resembles a woman’s story, as confirmed by many feminist theorists. However, it does not follow a specific linearity, but is ambiguous and controversial, simultaneously a story about isolation, reassurance, and seclusion, but also about interacting with the world and opposition. The needle is the symbol of the skill passed on in the family, over generations, from grandmothers and mothers, knowing what it is to be a woman, the natural attraction towards the warmth of the fabric, and intimate interaction. The process of embroidery and sewing is story-telling. It encompasses the whole patience for bringing the threads together and passing on memories and messages. The needle as a means to create and to mend, as one of the symbols of coziness, of childhood memories, is fragile, but sharp.
The project of the Fund for Artistic Projects by Women was made possible thanks to the trust and financial support of Veronika Puncheva, Lachezar Tsotzorkov Foundation, Legrand, Ubisoft, ALD Automative, as well as with the logistical support of the Institute for Contemporary Art – Sofia and Credo Bonum Gallery. The opening event is hosted by Freixenet.

Nicholas Roerich (1874–1947) is widely known not only as an artist, but also as a writer, archaeologist, scientist, public figure, philosopher and enlightener. He spent decades of his life touring and exploring the Himalayas, which also became his home. In the 1930s and 1940s, the artist studied these mountains in a series of landscapes and, investing his spiritual insights, reflected the beauty and mysticism of the region, capturing the picturesque scenery in the changing seasons and at different times of the day.
The National Gallery owns some 250 works by the painter, which were donated to the Bulgarian state in the late 1970s by his son, Svetoslav Roerich. The present exhibition includes 30 landscapes that take us to places whose mystique and mysteriousness are visible to the spiritually enlightened.
Among Nicholas Roerich’s indisputable merits was the initiation of Pax Cultura—the Treaty on the Protection of Artistic and Scientific Institutions and Historic Monuments (The Roerich Pact). This Treaty for the protection of cultural monuments was signed in Washington, in the presence of US President Franklin Roosevelt, on 15 April 1935, by all the member-state plenipotentiaries of the Pan American Union.
It envisaged that all sites over which the Banner of Peace was flown—museums, universities, architectural monuments, among others—should be considered as neutral, international territory, and with the protection of cultural heritage both in time of war and in time of peace to be regulated.

The ‘Atlantis’ exhibition is an adventure of the senses, an open door to the notion of reality and the past, a bold and dreamy inducement to encounter the unknown or the non-existent, even if only in one pictorial world.
Nina Ruseva created most of these paintings specifically for the occasion. The extreme, exciting emotional experience physically separates us from the reality surrounding us and conveys us to distant worlds. Peru, the Antarctic, Perperikon, or the lost lands of Atlantis—all unfold before the eyes of the viewer, refracted through the personal emotion and sensibility of the artist, through the rich imagination and curiosity towards the unknown that she materialises in her painting.
Nina Ruseva’s landscapes occupy the boundary between abstraction and reality—effulgent and temperamental, creating a sense of dynamism and, at the same time, bringing tranquillity to a desolate space dominated by natural forms. The large formats allow for a bold handling of form, colour, and large strokes thickly applied to the canvas.
The bright palette and frequent use of dark contours are distinguishing features of Nina Ruseva’s figurative language, reinforcing the feeling of the illusoriness of natural scenes.

Multimedia exposition dedicated to 150 years since the death of the Apostle of Freedom, Vasil Levski.
Using holographic technology on a large-scale video wall, a re-enactment of the trial of the Apostle of Freedom is displayed, and significant moments of his life are brought back to life. Veselin Plachkov portrays Vasil Levski. Actors Ivan Trenev, Lyubov Pavlova, Rumen Ivanov, Alexander Georgiev, Biser Marinov and Nikola Dodov are also participants. Nelly Dimitrova is the screenwriter; Dimitar Gochev, the director; Simeon Parashkevov and Dimitar Gochev, cinematographers; Atanas Gendov, composer; Pirina Veselinova, Evgeni Gospodinov and the Svetoglas Quartet, musical performers; sensor studio, animation and mapping; Hristo Karagyozov, audio mixing and post-production; Ivo Milev, creative producer; and Tsvetoslav Borisov, executive producer.
The National Gallery and the Vasil Levski All-Bulgarian Committee created the exposition, with the financial support of the Ministry of Culture and donations by the Lachezar Tsotsorkov Foundation, Kaufland Bulgaria EOOD, Aurubis Bulgaria JSC, Vazovski Machinery Works JSC – Sopot, and patriotic Bulgarians.
Kvadrat 500, entrance at 95, Vasil Levski Blvd., Sofia
Opening hours:
Tuesday–Sunday, 10 a.m.– 6 p.m.
The screenings are 30 minutes away, starting at 10 am
Bookings for groups of up to 20 people: +359 879 834 025
FREE ADMISSION

The Vera Nedkova House Museum ‘In the Home of Vera Nedkova’, the programme launched in 2019, continues to present contemporary artists along with Nedkova’s paintings. Displayed in the cosy atmosphere marked by Vera Nedkova’s intellectual and creative presence, the six photographs by Yana Lozeva show images of women with a strong and memorable individuality. Despite the apparent incompatibility of the two artists in their creative pursuits and concepts, the photographs correspond in an elegant way with the paintings in the museum’s interior. ‘We were looking for expressiveness, not so much external as internal,’ Vera Nedkova stated in her memoirs about her own art. In her early works, she was moved by the portrait and its depiction in a non-standard style in a space devoid of details.
Taken over the past two years, the photographs have captured brief and elusive moments and states of the subjects portrayed. The female images seem to sink into space in the manner of a watercolour, with their blurred contours and transitions between black and white. With her keenness of observation, Yana Lozeva is intrigued by the mysteriousness of the ordinary, by the moment of lost control and that specificity of the ‘out-of-hand’ framing, which sneaks inexplicably and imperceptibly in to lie at the base of the ‘Anacrusis’ exhibition.

Concert of the participants of Orlin Anastassov's Master Class
Chamber hall

Closing Gala of the Laureates
Bulgaria Concert Hall
Conductor
Nayden Todorov

Museum of Art from the Socialist Period
Under the motto ‘Sameness and Semblance’, 454 artists from 78 countries submitted works to the 12th International Photo Festival—PHODAR Biennial, demonstrating the great interest of artists from all over the world. The international jury selected 274 printed copies, presenting 21 artists from 12 countries, for inclusion in the exhibition. Three prizes were awarded—the grand prix, debut, and humanistic photography.
The regulations for this festival edition were distributed virtually via 44 electronic portals of national associations, specialist educational institutions, and media, placing the biennial among the leading events in world photography and almost doubling the number of participants when compared to previous years.
On 8 June, at 5 p.m., a theoretical seminar on the topic of ‘Sameness and Semblance’ will be held in the exhibition gallery, to be attended by experts in various disciplines of the humanities and the visual arts at St Kliment Ohridski Sofia University, the National Academy for Theatre and Film Arts (NATFA), and other higher educational institutions, galleries and NGOs, along with students, photo enthusiasts and established visual artists. On 22 June, at 4 p.m., a tour of the exposition will be organised for those who wish to learn more.
The PHODAR Foundation was established in 1999 to specialise in the visual arts while focusing on photography, the principal output being the International Photo Festival—the PHODAR Biennial. Its editions are thematic; photographic series and cycles are accepted. The jury consists of 9–11 experts in the genres of photography, the visual arts, and a variety of disciplines in the humanities.
The festival is made possible with the financial support of the Sofia Culture Programme.

Curator: Dr. Szabolcs Süli-Zakar
Sofia Arsenal – Museum of Contemporary Art
‘What art is can neither be grasped nor determined—one can only feel it.’ Joseph Tasnádi
Joseph Tasnádi’s exhibition is a review of his post-2010 oeuvre, consisting of installations, interventions, and digital experiments, along with some earlier drawings. His uniquely resonant lyrical installations, as well as the intellectual and sensitively poeticised objects, enter a dialogue with each other and start weaving an associative network of additional meanings.
A version of the exhibition took place in 2022 at the MODEM Center for Modern and Contemporary Art, Debrecen, Hungary.
Tasnádi’s creative career incorporates an array of artistic disciplines and genres, yet his writings, drawings, digital experiments, installations, and interventions form an extraordinarily coherent and organic whole. They illustrate poetic and artistic aspects of a profound experience. Tasnádi seeks his inspiration, not inside but outside, art. He finds things. Things that spontaneously connect themselves with metacontents, such as hope, memory, death, the impossibility of communication, paradox, place, time, presence, or of their lack.
At the same time, he examines the relationships between technology and art. In recent years, his work has focused on the bonds between man and machine, the relationship of technology, metaphoric perspective, and poetic thinking.
He thematises important questions with hybrid contemporary artistic methods in which (scientific) research, (artistic) elaboration/reflection and the demand for poetic synthesis are deeply inter-connected.

The Palace
Artists: Boryana Petkova & Iskra Blagoeva, Boryana Rossa, Katya Dimova, Krasimira Butseva, Monika Popova, nada ree, Natalia Jordanova, Neda Milanova, Oksana Kazmina, Rayna Teneva, Sophia Grancharova, Zelikha Shoja.
Curator: Svetlana Kuyumdzhieva
Design: Viktoriya Staykova
The exhibition presents the results from the BFW’s open call for the Fund for art projects by women artists in 2022. The female authors and their concepts were chosen among over 200 candidates in the competition. The expert jury consists of the curators Svetlana Kuyumdzhieva, Daniela Radeva, Stefka Tsaneva, Margarita Dorovska, as well as Gergana Kutseva, Dobromira Terpesheva, and Rosena Ivanova from the BFW team. Invited to respond to the state of emergency, challenges, and urgency in this day and age, the women artists react with varied intensity, character, style, and a great amount of sincerity. Contrasts and similarities between them, in the choice of media, their candor, turning towards their inner selves, and sharing personal stories, experiences, and memories all create a common environment of empathy and reciprocation. What inevitably connects them is exposing stereotypes about women’s social role and position. They are also connected by the needle as a tool chosen by most of them, but also as a byword for that patriarchal image of the woman holding her needlework. An image rooted in the consciousness of generations on end, which all these women defy.
The story of the needle resembles a woman’s story, as confirmed by many feminist theorists. However, it does not follow a specific linearity, but is ambiguous and controversial, simultaneously a story about isolation, reassurance, and seclusion, but also about interacting with the world and opposition. The needle is the symbol of the skill passed on in the family, over generations, from grandmothers and mothers, knowing what it is to be a woman, the natural attraction towards the warmth of the fabric, and intimate interaction. The process of embroidery and sewing is story-telling. It encompasses the whole patience for bringing the threads together and passing on memories and messages. The needle as a means to create and to mend, as one of the symbols of coziness, of childhood memories, is fragile, but sharp.
The project of the Fund for Artistic Projects by Women was made possible thanks to the trust and financial support of Veronika Puncheva, Lachezar Tsotzorkov Foundation, Legrand, Ubisoft, ALD Automative, as well as with the logistical support of the Institute for Contemporary Art – Sofia and Credo Bonum Gallery. The opening event is hosted by Freixenet.

Nicholas Roerich (1874–1947) is widely known not only as an artist, but also as a writer, archaeologist, scientist, public figure, philosopher and enlightener. He spent decades of his life touring and exploring the Himalayas, which also became his home. In the 1930s and 1940s, the artist studied these mountains in a series of landscapes and, investing his spiritual insights, reflected the beauty and mysticism of the region, capturing the picturesque scenery in the changing seasons and at different times of the day.
The National Gallery owns some 250 works by the painter, which were donated to the Bulgarian state in the late 1970s by his son, Svetoslav Roerich. The present exhibition includes 30 landscapes that take us to places whose mystique and mysteriousness are visible to the spiritually enlightened.
Among Nicholas Roerich’s indisputable merits was the initiation of Pax Cultura—the Treaty on the Protection of Artistic and Scientific Institutions and Historic Monuments (The Roerich Pact). This Treaty for the protection of cultural monuments was signed in Washington, in the presence of US President Franklin Roosevelt, on 15 April 1935, by all the member-state plenipotentiaries of the Pan American Union.
It envisaged that all sites over which the Banner of Peace was flown—museums, universities, architectural monuments, among others—should be considered as neutral, international territory, and with the protection of cultural heritage both in time of war and in time of peace to be regulated.

The ‘Atlantis’ exhibition is an adventure of the senses, an open door to the notion of reality and the past, a bold and dreamy inducement to encounter the unknown or the non-existent, even if only in one pictorial world.
Nina Ruseva created most of these paintings specifically for the occasion. The extreme, exciting emotional experience physically separates us from the reality surrounding us and conveys us to distant worlds. Peru, the Antarctic, Perperikon, or the lost lands of Atlantis—all unfold before the eyes of the viewer, refracted through the personal emotion and sensibility of the artist, through the rich imagination and curiosity towards the unknown that she materialises in her painting.
Nina Ruseva’s landscapes occupy the boundary between abstraction and reality—effulgent and temperamental, creating a sense of dynamism and, at the same time, bringing tranquillity to a desolate space dominated by natural forms. The large formats allow for a bold handling of form, colour, and large strokes thickly applied to the canvas.
The bright palette and frequent use of dark contours are distinguishing features of Nina Ruseva’s figurative language, reinforcing the feeling of the illusoriness of natural scenes.

Multimedia exposition dedicated to 150 years since the death of the Apostle of Freedom, Vasil Levski.
Using holographic technology on a large-scale video wall, a re-enactment of the trial of the Apostle of Freedom is displayed, and significant moments of his life are brought back to life. Veselin Plachkov portrays Vasil Levski. Actors Ivan Trenev, Lyubov Pavlova, Rumen Ivanov, Alexander Georgiev, Biser Marinov and Nikola Dodov are also participants. Nelly Dimitrova is the screenwriter; Dimitar Gochev, the director; Simeon Parashkevov and Dimitar Gochev, cinematographers; Atanas Gendov, composer; Pirina Veselinova, Evgeni Gospodinov and the Svetoglas Quartet, musical performers; sensor studio, animation and mapping; Hristo Karagyozov, audio mixing and post-production; Ivo Milev, creative producer; and Tsvetoslav Borisov, executive producer.
The National Gallery and the Vasil Levski All-Bulgarian Committee created the exposition, with the financial support of the Ministry of Culture and donations by the Lachezar Tsotsorkov Foundation, Kaufland Bulgaria EOOD, Aurubis Bulgaria JSC, Vazovski Machinery Works JSC – Sopot, and patriotic Bulgarians.
Kvadrat 500, entrance at 95, Vasil Levski Blvd., Sofia
Opening hours:
Tuesday–Sunday, 10 a.m.– 6 p.m.
The screenings are 30 minutes away, starting at 10 am
Bookings for groups of up to 20 people: +359 879 834 025
FREE ADMISSION

The Vera Nedkova House Museum ‘In the Home of Vera Nedkova’, the programme launched in 2019, continues to present contemporary artists along with Nedkova’s paintings. Displayed in the cosy atmosphere marked by Vera Nedkova’s intellectual and creative presence, the six photographs by Yana Lozeva show images of women with a strong and memorable individuality. Despite the apparent incompatibility of the two artists in their creative pursuits and concepts, the photographs correspond in an elegant way with the paintings in the museum’s interior. ‘We were looking for expressiveness, not so much external as internal,’ Vera Nedkova stated in her memoirs about her own art. In her early works, she was moved by the portrait and its depiction in a non-standard style in a space devoid of details.
Taken over the past two years, the photographs have captured brief and elusive moments and states of the subjects portrayed. The female images seem to sink into space in the manner of a watercolour, with their blurred contours and transitions between black and white. With her keenness of observation, Yana Lozeva is intrigued by the mysteriousness of the ordinary, by the moment of lost control and that specificity of the ‘out-of-hand’ framing, which sneaks inexplicably and imperceptibly in to lie at the base of the ‘Anacrusis’ exhibition.

Museum of Art from the Socialist Period
Under the motto ‘Sameness and Semblance’, 454 artists from 78 countries submitted works to the 12th International Photo Festival—PHODAR Biennial, demonstrating the great interest of artists from all over the world. The international jury selected 274 printed copies, presenting 21 artists from 12 countries, for inclusion in the exhibition. Three prizes were awarded—the grand prix, debut, and humanistic photography.
The regulations for this festival edition were distributed virtually via 44 electronic portals of national associations, specialist educational institutions, and media, placing the biennial among the leading events in world photography and almost doubling the number of participants when compared to previous years.
On 8 June, at 5 p.m., a theoretical seminar on the topic of ‘Sameness and Semblance’ will be held in the exhibition gallery, to be attended by experts in various disciplines of the humanities and the visual arts at St Kliment Ohridski Sofia University, the National Academy for Theatre and Film Arts (NATFA), and other higher educational institutions, galleries and NGOs, along with students, photo enthusiasts and established visual artists. On 22 June, at 4 p.m., a tour of the exposition will be organised for those who wish to learn more.
The PHODAR Foundation was established in 1999 to specialise in the visual arts while focusing on photography, the principal output being the International Photo Festival—the PHODAR Biennial. Its editions are thematic; photographic series and cycles are accepted. The jury consists of 9–11 experts in the genres of photography, the visual arts, and a variety of disciplines in the humanities.
The festival is made possible with the financial support of the Sofia Culture Programme.

Curator: Dr. Szabolcs Süli-Zakar
Sofia Arsenal – Museum of Contemporary Art
‘What art is can neither be grasped nor determined—one can only feel it.’ Joseph Tasnádi
Joseph Tasnádi’s exhibition is a review of his post-2010 oeuvre, consisting of installations, interventions, and digital experiments, along with some earlier drawings. His uniquely resonant lyrical installations, as well as the intellectual and sensitively poeticised objects, enter a dialogue with each other and start weaving an associative network of additional meanings.
A version of the exhibition took place in 2022 at the MODEM Center for Modern and Contemporary Art, Debrecen, Hungary.
Tasnádi’s creative career incorporates an array of artistic disciplines and genres, yet his writings, drawings, digital experiments, installations, and interventions form an extraordinarily coherent and organic whole. They illustrate poetic and artistic aspects of a profound experience. Tasnádi seeks his inspiration, not inside but outside, art. He finds things. Things that spontaneously connect themselves with metacontents, such as hope, memory, death, the impossibility of communication, paradox, place, time, presence, or of their lack.
At the same time, he examines the relationships between technology and art. In recent years, his work has focused on the bonds between man and machine, the relationship of technology, metaphoric perspective, and poetic thinking.
He thematises important questions with hybrid contemporary artistic methods in which (scientific) research, (artistic) elaboration/reflection and the demand for poetic synthesis are deeply inter-connected.

The Palace
Artists: Boryana Petkova & Iskra Blagoeva, Boryana Rossa, Katya Dimova, Krasimira Butseva, Monika Popova, nada ree, Natalia Jordanova, Neda Milanova, Oksana Kazmina, Rayna Teneva, Sophia Grancharova, Zelikha Shoja.
Curator: Svetlana Kuyumdzhieva
Design: Viktoriya Staykova
The exhibition presents the results from the BFW’s open call for the Fund for art projects by women artists in 2022. The female authors and their concepts were chosen among over 200 candidates in the competition. The expert jury consists of the curators Svetlana Kuyumdzhieva, Daniela Radeva, Stefka Tsaneva, Margarita Dorovska, as well as Gergana Kutseva, Dobromira Terpesheva, and Rosena Ivanova from the BFW team. Invited to respond to the state of emergency, challenges, and urgency in this day and age, the women artists react with varied intensity, character, style, and a great amount of sincerity. Contrasts and similarities between them, in the choice of media, their candor, turning towards their inner selves, and sharing personal stories, experiences, and memories all create a common environment of empathy and reciprocation. What inevitably connects them is exposing stereotypes about women’s social role and position. They are also connected by the needle as a tool chosen by most of them, but also as a byword for that patriarchal image of the woman holding her needlework. An image rooted in the consciousness of generations on end, which all these women defy.
The story of the needle resembles a woman’s story, as confirmed by many feminist theorists. However, it does not follow a specific linearity, but is ambiguous and controversial, simultaneously a story about isolation, reassurance, and seclusion, but also about interacting with the world and opposition. The needle is the symbol of the skill passed on in the family, over generations, from grandmothers and mothers, knowing what it is to be a woman, the natural attraction towards the warmth of the fabric, and intimate interaction. The process of embroidery and sewing is story-telling. It encompasses the whole patience for bringing the threads together and passing on memories and messages. The needle as a means to create and to mend, as one of the symbols of coziness, of childhood memories, is fragile, but sharp.
The project of the Fund for Artistic Projects by Women was made possible thanks to the trust and financial support of Veronika Puncheva, Lachezar Tsotzorkov Foundation, Legrand, Ubisoft, ALD Automative, as well as with the logistical support of the Institute for Contemporary Art – Sofia and Credo Bonum Gallery. The opening event is hosted by Freixenet.

Nicholas Roerich (1874–1947) is widely known not only as an artist, but also as a writer, archaeologist, scientist, public figure, philosopher and enlightener. He spent decades of his life touring and exploring the Himalayas, which also became his home. In the 1930s and 1940s, the artist studied these mountains in a series of landscapes and, investing his spiritual insights, reflected the beauty and mysticism of the region, capturing the picturesque scenery in the changing seasons and at different times of the day.
The National Gallery owns some 250 works by the painter, which were donated to the Bulgarian state in the late 1970s by his son, Svetoslav Roerich. The present exhibition includes 30 landscapes that take us to places whose mystique and mysteriousness are visible to the spiritually enlightened.
Among Nicholas Roerich’s indisputable merits was the initiation of Pax Cultura—the Treaty on the Protection of Artistic and Scientific Institutions and Historic Monuments (The Roerich Pact). This Treaty for the protection of cultural monuments was signed in Washington, in the presence of US President Franklin Roosevelt, on 15 April 1935, by all the member-state plenipotentiaries of the Pan American Union.
It envisaged that all sites over which the Banner of Peace was flown—museums, universities, architectural monuments, among others—should be considered as neutral, international territory, and with the protection of cultural heritage both in time of war and in time of peace to be regulated.

The ‘Atlantis’ exhibition is an adventure of the senses, an open door to the notion of reality and the past, a bold and dreamy inducement to encounter the unknown or the non-existent, even if only in one pictorial world.
Nina Ruseva created most of these paintings specifically for the occasion. The extreme, exciting emotional experience physically separates us from the reality surrounding us and conveys us to distant worlds. Peru, the Antarctic, Perperikon, or the lost lands of Atlantis—all unfold before the eyes of the viewer, refracted through the personal emotion and sensibility of the artist, through the rich imagination and curiosity towards the unknown that she materialises in her painting.
Nina Ruseva’s landscapes occupy the boundary between abstraction and reality—effulgent and temperamental, creating a sense of dynamism and, at the same time, bringing tranquillity to a desolate space dominated by natural forms. The large formats allow for a bold handling of form, colour, and large strokes thickly applied to the canvas.
The bright palette and frequent use of dark contours are distinguishing features of Nina Ruseva’s figurative language, reinforcing the feeling of the illusoriness of natural scenes.

Multimedia exposition dedicated to 150 years since the death of the Apostle of Freedom, Vasil Levski.
Using holographic technology on a large-scale video wall, a re-enactment of the trial of the Apostle of Freedom is displayed, and significant moments of his life are brought back to life. Veselin Plachkov portrays Vasil Levski. Actors Ivan Trenev, Lyubov Pavlova, Rumen Ivanov, Alexander Georgiev, Biser Marinov and Nikola Dodov are also participants. Nelly Dimitrova is the screenwriter; Dimitar Gochev, the director; Simeon Parashkevov and Dimitar Gochev, cinematographers; Atanas Gendov, composer; Pirina Veselinova, Evgeni Gospodinov and the Svetoglas Quartet, musical performers; sensor studio, animation and mapping; Hristo Karagyozov, audio mixing and post-production; Ivo Milev, creative producer; and Tsvetoslav Borisov, executive producer.
The National Gallery and the Vasil Levski All-Bulgarian Committee created the exposition, with the financial support of the Ministry of Culture and donations by the Lachezar Tsotsorkov Foundation, Kaufland Bulgaria EOOD, Aurubis Bulgaria JSC, Vazovski Machinery Works JSC – Sopot, and patriotic Bulgarians.
Kvadrat 500, entrance at 95, Vasil Levski Blvd., Sofia
Opening hours:
Tuesday–Sunday, 10 a.m.– 6 p.m.
The screenings are 30 minutes away, starting at 10 am
Bookings for groups of up to 20 people: +359 879 834 025
FREE ADMISSION

The Vera Nedkova House Museum ‘In the Home of Vera Nedkova’, the programme launched in 2019, continues to present contemporary artists along with Nedkova’s paintings. Displayed in the cosy atmosphere marked by Vera Nedkova’s intellectual and creative presence, the six photographs by Yana Lozeva show images of women with a strong and memorable individuality. Despite the apparent incompatibility of the two artists in their creative pursuits and concepts, the photographs correspond in an elegant way with the paintings in the museum’s interior. ‘We were looking for expressiveness, not so much external as internal,’ Vera Nedkova stated in her memoirs about her own art. In her early works, she was moved by the portrait and its depiction in a non-standard style in a space devoid of details.
Taken over the past two years, the photographs have captured brief and elusive moments and states of the subjects portrayed. The female images seem to sink into space in the manner of a watercolour, with their blurred contours and transitions between black and white. With her keenness of observation, Yana Lozeva is intrigued by the mysteriousness of the ordinary, by the moment of lost control and that specificity of the ‘out-of-hand’ framing, which sneaks inexplicably and imperceptibly in to lie at the base of the ‘Anacrusis’ exhibition.

Museum of Art from the Socialist Period
Under the motto ‘Sameness and Semblance’, 454 artists from 78 countries submitted works to the 12th International Photo Festival—PHODAR Biennial, demonstrating the great interest of artists from all over the world. The international jury selected 274 printed copies, presenting 21 artists from 12 countries, for inclusion in the exhibition. Three prizes were awarded—the grand prix, debut, and humanistic photography.
The regulations for this festival edition were distributed virtually via 44 electronic portals of national associations, specialist educational institutions, and media, placing the biennial among the leading events in world photography and almost doubling the number of participants when compared to previous years.
On 8 June, at 5 p.m., a theoretical seminar on the topic of ‘Sameness and Semblance’ will be held in the exhibition gallery, to be attended by experts in various disciplines of the humanities and the visual arts at St Kliment Ohridski Sofia University, the National Academy for Theatre and Film Arts (NATFA), and other higher educational institutions, galleries and NGOs, along with students, photo enthusiasts and established visual artists. On 22 June, at 4 p.m., a tour of the exposition will be organised for those who wish to learn more.
The PHODAR Foundation was established in 1999 to specialise in the visual arts while focusing on photography, the principal output being the International Photo Festival—the PHODAR Biennial. Its editions are thematic; photographic series and cycles are accepted. The jury consists of 9–11 experts in the genres of photography, the visual arts, and a variety of disciplines in the humanities.
The festival is made possible with the financial support of the Sofia Culture Programme.

Curator: Dr. Szabolcs Süli-Zakar
Sofia Arsenal – Museum of Contemporary Art
‘What art is can neither be grasped nor determined—one can only feel it.’ Joseph Tasnádi
Joseph Tasnádi’s exhibition is a review of his post-2010 oeuvre, consisting of installations, interventions, and digital experiments, along with some earlier drawings. His uniquely resonant lyrical installations, as well as the intellectual and sensitively poeticised objects, enter a dialogue with each other and start weaving an associative network of additional meanings.
A version of the exhibition took place in 2022 at the MODEM Center for Modern and Contemporary Art, Debrecen, Hungary.
Tasnádi’s creative career incorporates an array of artistic disciplines and genres, yet his writings, drawings, digital experiments, installations, and interventions form an extraordinarily coherent and organic whole. They illustrate poetic and artistic aspects of a profound experience. Tasnádi seeks his inspiration, not inside but outside, art. He finds things. Things that spontaneously connect themselves with metacontents, such as hope, memory, death, the impossibility of communication, paradox, place, time, presence, or of their lack.
At the same time, he examines the relationships between technology and art. In recent years, his work has focused on the bonds between man and machine, the relationship of technology, metaphoric perspective, and poetic thinking.
He thematises important questions with hybrid contemporary artistic methods in which (scientific) research, (artistic) elaboration/reflection and the demand for poetic synthesis are deeply inter-connected.

The Palace
Artists: Boryana Petkova & Iskra Blagoeva, Boryana Rossa, Katya Dimova, Krasimira Butseva, Monika Popova, nada ree, Natalia Jordanova, Neda Milanova, Oksana Kazmina, Rayna Teneva, Sophia Grancharova, Zelikha Shoja.
Curator: Svetlana Kuyumdzhieva
Design: Viktoriya Staykova
The exhibition presents the results from the BFW’s open call for the Fund for art projects by women artists in 2022. The female authors and their concepts were chosen among over 200 candidates in the competition. The expert jury consists of the curators Svetlana Kuyumdzhieva, Daniela Radeva, Stefka Tsaneva, Margarita Dorovska, as well as Gergana Kutseva, Dobromira Terpesheva, and Rosena Ivanova from the BFW team. Invited to respond to the state of emergency, challenges, and urgency in this day and age, the women artists react with varied intensity, character, style, and a great amount of sincerity. Contrasts and similarities between them, in the choice of media, their candor, turning towards their inner selves, and sharing personal stories, experiences, and memories all create a common environment of empathy and reciprocation. What inevitably connects them is exposing stereotypes about women’s social role and position. They are also connected by the needle as a tool chosen by most of them, but also as a byword for that patriarchal image of the woman holding her needlework. An image rooted in the consciousness of generations on end, which all these women defy.
The story of the needle resembles a woman’s story, as confirmed by many feminist theorists. However, it does not follow a specific linearity, but is ambiguous and controversial, simultaneously a story about isolation, reassurance, and seclusion, but also about interacting with the world and opposition. The needle is the symbol of the skill passed on in the family, over generations, from grandmothers and mothers, knowing what it is to be a woman, the natural attraction towards the warmth of the fabric, and intimate interaction. The process of embroidery and sewing is story-telling. It encompasses the whole patience for bringing the threads together and passing on memories and messages. The needle as a means to create and to mend, as one of the symbols of coziness, of childhood memories, is fragile, but sharp.
The project of the Fund for Artistic Projects by Women was made possible thanks to the trust and financial support of Veronika Puncheva, Lachezar Tsotzorkov Foundation, Legrand, Ubisoft, ALD Automative, as well as with the logistical support of the Institute for Contemporary Art – Sofia and Credo Bonum Gallery. The opening event is hosted by Freixenet.

Nicholas Roerich (1874–1947) is widely known not only as an artist, but also as a writer, archaeologist, scientist, public figure, philosopher and enlightener. He spent decades of his life touring and exploring the Himalayas, which also became his home. In the 1930s and 1940s, the artist studied these mountains in a series of landscapes and, investing his spiritual insights, reflected the beauty and mysticism of the region, capturing the picturesque scenery in the changing seasons and at different times of the day.
The National Gallery owns some 250 works by the painter, which were donated to the Bulgarian state in the late 1970s by his son, Svetoslav Roerich. The present exhibition includes 30 landscapes that take us to places whose mystique and mysteriousness are visible to the spiritually enlightened.
Among Nicholas Roerich’s indisputable merits was the initiation of Pax Cultura—the Treaty on the Protection of Artistic and Scientific Institutions and Historic Monuments (The Roerich Pact). This Treaty for the protection of cultural monuments was signed in Washington, in the presence of US President Franklin Roosevelt, on 15 April 1935, by all the member-state plenipotentiaries of the Pan American Union.
It envisaged that all sites over which the Banner of Peace was flown—museums, universities, architectural monuments, among others—should be considered as neutral, international territory, and with the protection of cultural heritage both in time of war and in time of peace to be regulated.

The ‘Atlantis’ exhibition is an adventure of the senses, an open door to the notion of reality and the past, a bold and dreamy inducement to encounter the unknown or the non-existent, even if only in one pictorial world.
Nina Ruseva created most of these paintings specifically for the occasion. The extreme, exciting emotional experience physically separates us from the reality surrounding us and conveys us to distant worlds. Peru, the Antarctic, Perperikon, or the lost lands of Atlantis—all unfold before the eyes of the viewer, refracted through the personal emotion and sensibility of the artist, through the rich imagination and curiosity towards the unknown that she materialises in her painting.
Nina Ruseva’s landscapes occupy the boundary between abstraction and reality—effulgent and temperamental, creating a sense of dynamism and, at the same time, bringing tranquillity to a desolate space dominated by natural forms. The large formats allow for a bold handling of form, colour, and large strokes thickly applied to the canvas.
The bright palette and frequent use of dark contours are distinguishing features of Nina Ruseva’s figurative language, reinforcing the feeling of the illusoriness of natural scenes.

Multimedia exposition dedicated to 150 years since the death of the Apostle of Freedom, Vasil Levski.
Using holographic technology on a large-scale video wall, a re-enactment of the trial of the Apostle of Freedom is displayed, and significant moments of his life are brought back to life. Veselin Plachkov portrays Vasil Levski. Actors Ivan Trenev, Lyubov Pavlova, Rumen Ivanov, Alexander Georgiev, Biser Marinov and Nikola Dodov are also participants. Nelly Dimitrova is the screenwriter; Dimitar Gochev, the director; Simeon Parashkevov and Dimitar Gochev, cinematographers; Atanas Gendov, composer; Pirina Veselinova, Evgeni Gospodinov and the Svetoglas Quartet, musical performers; sensor studio, animation and mapping; Hristo Karagyozov, audio mixing and post-production; Ivo Milev, creative producer; and Tsvetoslav Borisov, executive producer.
The National Gallery and the Vasil Levski All-Bulgarian Committee created the exposition, with the financial support of the Ministry of Culture and donations by the Lachezar Tsotsorkov Foundation, Kaufland Bulgaria EOOD, Aurubis Bulgaria JSC, Vazovski Machinery Works JSC – Sopot, and patriotic Bulgarians.
Kvadrat 500, entrance at 95, Vasil Levski Blvd., Sofia
Opening hours:
Tuesday–Sunday, 10 a.m.– 6 p.m.
The screenings are 30 minutes away, starting at 10 am
Bookings for groups of up to 20 people: +359 879 834 025
FREE ADMISSION

The Vera Nedkova House Museum ‘In the Home of Vera Nedkova’, the programme launched in 2019, continues to present contemporary artists along with Nedkova’s paintings. Displayed in the cosy atmosphere marked by Vera Nedkova’s intellectual and creative presence, the six photographs by Yana Lozeva show images of women with a strong and memorable individuality. Despite the apparent incompatibility of the two artists in their creative pursuits and concepts, the photographs correspond in an elegant way with the paintings in the museum’s interior. ‘We were looking for expressiveness, not so much external as internal,’ Vera Nedkova stated in her memoirs about her own art. In her early works, she was moved by the portrait and its depiction in a non-standard style in a space devoid of details.
Taken over the past two years, the photographs have captured brief and elusive moments and states of the subjects portrayed. The female images seem to sink into space in the manner of a watercolour, with their blurred contours and transitions between black and white. With her keenness of observation, Yana Lozeva is intrigued by the mysteriousness of the ordinary, by the moment of lost control and that specificity of the ‘out-of-hand’ framing, which sneaks inexplicably and imperceptibly in to lie at the base of the ‘Anacrusis’ exhibition.

Bulgaria Concert Hall
Conductor
Nayden Todorov
Soloist/s
Mincho Minchev
Ensemble
Sofia Philharmonic Orchestra
Program
Antonín Dvořák - Romance for Violin and Orchestra No.2 in F minor, Op.11
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky - Russian Dance for Violin and Orchestra
Paul Hindemith - Ite, angeli veloces
Niccolò Paganini - “Andante” from Violin Concert No.5
Ludwig van Beethoven - Symphony No.1 in C major,Op.21