apollonia, european art exchanges presents:

PROJECTED VISIONS

[screening and discussion]
Thursday14- Friday 15 February  2008.
(Thursday at 6 pm, Friday at 5 pm )

Lindart Exhibition Hall.

High Sensitivity 10-Band World Receiver

Curator: Krassimir Terziev

Artists: Katia Damianova, Petia Dimitrova, Leda Ekimova, Lazar Lyutakov, Orlin Nedelchev, Anton Terziev, Jelko Terziev, X-TENDO, Nikolay Zanev, Boriana Ventsislavova

The video selection presents 10 artists of the youngest generation in Bulgarian contemporary art.
The selected 11 videos vary in their form and genre from straight reportage and documentary format to short music video and more experimental sets. There is only a tiny red line that all works have in common – the artists share a sustained interest in reality, in facts and phenomena from the immediate surroundings or from the global media. With the exception of one title (5/5) all works are based in production, there is no sophisticated editing or image manipulation.
Most of the works (except Alone and Calf) are narrative based. The subjects vary from internal introspection to portraits of individuals or sociological portraits of migrant communities, to further more complex studies of information flows and the construction of identity.
It might be said now at the end of the transition period the country has gone through in the last 17 years, that the rapidly-changing reality has offered much more inspiration for the artists than any formal experimentation with the medium or the aesthetics. In fact it is visible in most of the works that artists do not care so much about the originality of the form or the aesthetics. They borrow freely from languages of mean-stream media or leave the footage as it is being recorded. The focus is more on how meaning is constructed and what are the systems that mediate our perception and experience

Blinks.
Projected visions - Latvia
  
Curator : Mara Traumane
Artists : Arnis Balcus ,Kristine Briede , Ieva Jerohina ,Peteris Kimelis, Daiga Kruze, Elina Lihaceva , Katrina Neiburga ,Reinis Petersons,Martins Ratniks, Kriss Salmanis

« Blinks » are mapping out and thematically side-noting tendencies, topics and individual characters within the young video-and-art scene in Latvia. Some of the authors are represented by two or three art pieces in order to highlight the scope of experimentation and to draw an additional attention to continuous practices. 
« Blinks »  attempt to mark some of the vectors for the insight into Latvian art and video scene.
The selection includes works created between 2001 and 2005, it comprises thirteen films by nine authors. The curator Mara Traumane, organised the selection in three parts that provide loose, thematic and interpretative guidance through the works.

Part I is including artists' interpretations of the course of history, concepts of statehood and attributes of national and local belonging - it could be generally regarded as a reaction to the "operational" historic surroundings.

Part II – reveals personal and intimate approach, narrativity, stories and moods enveloping individual existence. It oscillates between essays, observations and anthropological investigations.

Part III includes works fusing different genres and experimenting with the image and textual or sonic properties of the video. Conceived in the interchange with the fields of writing and sound these pieces reveal abstract language of image, sound and word that appeals to the process of perception, duration and sensory effects. This part is indicative of the collaborations of artists from different fields in a shared search for the new media of expression. 

Organized by:
apollonia is an association based on local law created in 1998, on the basis of work conducted since 1994 by the Council of Europe within the framework of the Program of European Artistic Exchanges.

Today apollonia defines itself as a platform of cooperation in the area of the visual arts between European countries and, more specifically, with the countries of Central and Eastern Europe, the Balkans, the countries along the Baltic Sea and in the South Caucasus.

apollonia is an autonomous structure functioning on the foundation of close cooperation with other European partners, both inside and outside the European Union. Thus the conception and realization of the projects results from the mutual support of the participating partners. A large majority of them are traveling presentations and thereby reach a wide European public.