Description
The project aims to contribute to the contemporary visual art and popularize it among the wide public in Bulgaria and Norway as well as inclusion of Roma children in cultural and social aspect. The project goals are to present and popularize in Bulgaria nature art as one of the contemporary form of art and culture; to support the development of this contemporary trend of art in Bulgaria; to wake and create lasting and stable relations with the spirit of nature and art as part of it. In 2015 art group DUPPINI will organize the forth edition of the International symposium ART-NATURE in the village of Gabrovtsi. The event affirmed as a forum for manifestation of authors who create in the trend nature art. After an open invitation in the forum seven authors will participate (6 foreigners, one of them is from Norway, and one is Bulgarian) with world renown in the land art sphere. Within two weeks they will again create together with DUPpINI. According to the symposium conception the works are built up of ecological materials, they remain amidst nature and shape the route of a sculpture eco-park. At the end of the event a Day of the open days is organized where to widest public the authors present their works as concept and plastic installation. A translation of „Balance: Art and Nature", a book by the Canadian critic John K. Grande will be done. A residential programme will be created in the village. Also 20 children of Roma and Bulgarian ethnos will meet in two open workshops. In the Day of open doors and in presenting of the multimedia installation in Norway with a concert will join the mixed ethnic formation Balkan Khans. A travelling large multimedia installation will be organized in four towns of North-Eastern and Central Bulgaria, in cultural institutes, open city spaces and small towns. The sustainability of the project is ensured both by the rich professional experience of group DUPPINI and the long-standing successful activity of the partner “Amalipe” centre.
Summary of project results
The contemporary art in Bulgaria is still far from the interests and needs of the general public. The lack of visual culture is one of the major problems in understanding and perception of contemporary art in its diversity. Another major problem is the lack of funding for art, both from private sponsors and as a clear national policy and strategy. The lack of political leaders with proper attitude to culture is felt particularly painful in the country side. The media coverage of contemporary art outside the capital is weak and insufficient. There is a lack of discussion and dialogue between the media and the artists, working in the province. Especially the children, living in smaller towns, are unable to contact with galleries, museums and contemporary art in general, or to experience a real art event. Their participation in this project will provoke their senses, unleash their creative energies and stimulate their creativity, since these are not priority tasks at schools, because of the outdated curricula and methodologies, as well as the lack of well trained teachers. To achieve promoting the nature art as one of the modern forms of art and culture the beneficiary organized a series of events (an international symposium Gabrovtsi ART - NATURE 2015, six exhibitions, two children nature art workshops) and documented and presented them in art centres, small towns and open urban spaces; The art symposium, the residential programs for Bulgarian and foreign artists, the translation of literature, dedicated to this issue and the purchase of the necessary high quality equipment for presentation of the results allowed the artists to use their creative energy for production of works, relevant to the modern developments in this field of art; Norwegian and Bulgarian artists in the field of nature art, as well as the presentation of the results of these two events, together with the concert of Balkan Khans in Norway, employed a proven and successful model of multicultural exchange of ideas in the field of art; New artworks were added to the Sculpture Eco Park in the village of Gabrovtsi. The free access to it for all visitors helps in creating response and excite interest to the natural connection between nature, art and culture in a wide range of people, including children, and to develop an environmental consciousness in them;
Summary of bilateral results