SOFIA-LONDON EXCHANGE EXHIBITION

About

The exhibition Sofia-London Exchange will take place at Candid Galleries in London between 18 — 28 March and in Sofia between 8 — 18 April. It is an exchange project between Candid Galleries (Candid Arts Trust) and Academia Gallery (National Academy of Art, Sofia) and will include ten young artists: five British-based and five Bulgarian-based recent graduates or graduating students, working with various art media — painting, sculpture, print, photography, video and fashion. This experimental project aims at putting together a selection of works by talented emerging artists from the two sides of Europe, the West and the East, and exploring the links, gaps, questions, and sensibilities that will arise from this merging 20 years after the fall of the Berlin Wall and in the context of the European Union integration. However, the show doesn't have a political agenda, but rather an educational intention. Its goal is to encourage intercultural dialogue between the artists and to stimulate cultural exchange between the two countries, as well as present to the public in London and in Sofia a collection that is original, fresh and exciting. The key word for the project is ‘exchange', which in everyday language has a mundane, commercial connotation. The idea of the exhibition is to subvert this meaning and substitute it for a more poetic concept of giving and receiving. It is meant to raise issues about the acknowledgement of the other, the act of viewing oneself through someone else's eyes and the way these processes transform and shape one's identity.