FESTIVAL 2006
Report
The third festival was held under the slogan ‘divided nations’ between Mai 27th and June 9th 2006. Around 40 artists, 48 film producers and 5 art scientists participated from 15 nations.
The programme offered three major aspects: Exhibition, film programme and a theoretical part.
The festival was divided into 3 exhibition locations with a total of 1200
m²: “see casino”, “city art gallery” and “bullart
gallery”. Different contributions from installation, design, photography
and video were complemented by actions and performances from the public
sector.
The film programme “Some are watching” showed 48 short films
from Germany, France, Bulgaria, Switzerland and United Kingdom. The film
blocs were arranged by “Dokfest“ Kassel, Germany; „Red
House“ Sofia, Bulgaria; „Le Fresnoy“ Tourcoing, France
and „Videogramm“ -Sainte Foy, France.
The theoretical part included discussions and speeches with Barbara Heinrich
(Kunsthalle Fridericianum) Germany, Chris Torc (Intercult) Sweden, Ruen
Ruenov (free Curator), Antoniy Donchev und Vessela Nozharova (The Red House
Center) Bulgaria.
The festival was of large interest. The exhibition and events attracted
more than 2000 visitors. The amount of different activities were displayed
in press, media and radio informing daily the public in Varna and throughout
whole Bulgaria.
Among our Partner and Sponsors are: the ministry of culture of Bulgaria,
the municipality of Varna, the Swiss culture programme “Pro Helvetia”,
the French Institute of culture, the “New Bulgarian University” and
the “Art Centre b&g”.
The idea of “making” a Festival of Contemporary Art and, in
general, of making public the reflections of artists and critics demand
observation of the processes occurring in public life. This observation
is a personal as well as a public event. Societies undergo changes and it
is the process of reflection and discussion of the occurring social changes
that we want to present.
The Festival is in itself a stage, a platform where the artists present
and articulate their thoughts. On the other hand, the society, the audience,
the individual viewer – regardless of whether he agrees or disagrees
with, likes or dislikes them – reacts to the presented attitudes.
In this edition of the Festival, we have dared to draw the participants’ attention
to issues, which have changed histories and have confronted cultures. We
focus on tendencies, in which divisions have achieved supreme power. The
division of nations, the division of the future is important to our cultures
and we do want to speak about that. We want to know the extent the separation
must reach in order to make us realize that we need unification.
The participants observe global tendencies like division/unification
and sharpen the attention towards questions like “Are we really divided?” or “Are
we really united?”, “How far can the institutional division/unification
reach?”, “What is my personal experience of division/unification?”.
The choice of artists from Korea, Germany, Bulgaria, Macedonia, France,
Bosnia, Italy, Switzerland, Luxemburg and Mexico aims at making clear their
personal feelings upon reading history in the context of the theme Divided
nations.
All the above mentioned seems enormous, disproportionate to our ability
to grasp, reflect and change. But presented in an individual or even local
way, it suddenly becomes commensurate with us. We can deal with these issues
and we can even have fun.
Yordan Ganevski