Site-specific installation SAPROMAT (collaboration between M. Dobreva and B. Daltchev)
Curator Rosena Ivanova
UniArt Gallery, New Bulgarian University, Sofia 2019
Photo credit SAPROMAT
The collective Sapromat was born with the exhibition “Unapparent”. We came up with the idea of the installation while trying to experience the space of UniArt Gallery. It all started with contemplating the light, reflections, materials, angles and delicate shades of white in the gallery. Suddenly, a realisation came. In our perception as artists the best one can do inside such an elaborate space is to try and focus the audience's attention on experiencing it deeper by contemplating on the way they fit in the space and the way that the space welcomes them inside.
The installation is trying to gently direct the visitor’s senses and demonstrate the small and usually invisible details of everyday life, like changing of the light and measurements of the space. We created five big white columns that replicate the real architectural columns in the gallery. Two of them are designed to have top lids that slowly open, gradually let light in and close again repeatedly, measuring time passing by. People can look inside the columns and feel the white solitude and noise.
Our work creates a transient art piece that cannot exist outside the interaction of the viewer and the space. Yet, viewers can carry the experience of attunement with themselves and within spaces beyond the gallery.
