Curator: Danny Radichkov
28.03 – 27.04. 2025
Opening: 28.03, Friday, 27.03, 6-9 pm
ICA-Sofia Gallery, 134 Vasil Levski Blvd., Sofia (entrance from Ekzarh Yosif St.)
The exhibition “Cartography of Absence” by Krasimira Butseva is part of the BAZA Award for Contemporary Art, received by the artist in 2022. It presents a multidisciplinary visual reflection on the inherited absences and gaps in memory linked to Bulgaria's recent history of political violence. The project includes photography, video, and photobooks, developed through archival research conducted over the past decade.
Two of the photographs in the exhibition had preserved a fraction from Island Persin, where the former forced labour camp Belene is situated. These images are deliberately obstructed and incomplete and embody the philosophical concepts of "poor images" proposed by Hito Steyerl, Tina Campt, and Eyal Weizman. Such poor or failed images often represent the only possible documentation of sites marked by political violence and restricted by limited access and control.
The photobooks feature collections of visual fragments, personal notes, and documentary traces, forming a map and space for these difficult histories. The exhibition also includes imagery of objects collected from Island Persin and testimonies from relatives of those who experienced political violence.
Butseva’s exhibition explores how traumatic pasts are carried forward, represented, and remembered across generations. Her work continues to interrogate the role of art as a form of preservation, reflection, and resistance against forgetting, creating spaces for dialogue around histories excluded from official archives and dominant historical narratives.
The exhibition is realised with the support of the Trust for Mutual Understanding and Residency Unlimited.
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The Young Artist Award was established in 1990 in the Czech Republic by Wendy Luers, founder and director of the Foundation for Civil Society (USA). Today the award exists in 12 European countries and has become one of the most prestigious awards and a serious professional testimonial. Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Kosovo, North Macedonia, Hungary, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia and Montenegro are among the countries that have joined the award initiative. As a result of the active exchange of information between the countries, the YVAA International Young Artists Awards Network was established (http://www.yvaawards.org).
Bulgaria joined the international network in 2008 on the initiative of Maria Vassileva. The organizers of the BAZA Award for Contemporary Art are the Institute of Contemporary Art – Sofia and the Edmond Demirdjian Foundation. Since 2021, the Lachezar Tsotsorkov Foundation has supported the nominated artists by funding their projects. The annual exhibition of the nominated artists takes place at the Sofia City Art Gallery.
The contest is open to artists up to 35 years of age working in all media of contemporary art. The aim of the award is to support young artists by providing them with new opportunities for education, research, and professional development.
The award includes a two-month residency at Residency Unlimited, New York, as well as a solo exhibition at the ICA-Sofia Gallery. The award is sponsored by the Trust for Mutual Understanding, New York.
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Krassimira Butseva is a visual artist living between Sofia and London. In her creative practice she works with video, photography, sound and installation, and explores the dynamics between remembering and forgetting, trauma and political violence, carrying and caring for memory. Krasimira Butseva is a lecturer on the BA Photography programme at the London College of Communication, University of the Arts London. In 2024 Krasimira Butseva, together with Julian Chehirian and Lilia Topouzova, represented Bulgaria at the 60th Venice Biennale. In 2022, she received the BAZA Award for Contemporary Art, and in 2021, she was awarded a fellowship at the Akademie Schloss Solitude creative residency in Stuttgart, Germany. Krassimira Butseva is also co-founder of Revolv Collective, as well as editor and contributor of EEP Berlin.
