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TALKS:

The contemporary forms of visual arts reflect on our surrounding world and in many instances they do not rely on market realization. They are directed towards the creation of new communication strategies for the exchange of information with the audience and quite often provoke sharp public reactions by focusing the attention on various controversial political, social or ecological issues. Many artists, particularly at the present moment of global economic crisis, find it hard to survive on the market without compromising on their ideas. The Talks project affords an opportunity to actively working artists across the world to express freely their views and reflections regarding their work as contemporary conceptual artists. The project started with interviews of contemporary Bulgarian artists with the purpose of producing video-narratives revealing in their purest form the conceptions of the authors and their strategies for safeguarding their specific artistic idiom in a world growing ever more commercialized.

The short documentaries are made in a format suitable for the Internet space by assembling the material from several shooting days. The films will be shown on the pages of our three partners‟ organizations. In the last stage of the project each of the partners will organize three open presentations of the videos accompanied by a discussion session.

The countries in which the project will be realized, Bulgaria, Turkey, and Italy, afford an interesting example of the juxtaposition of nations with different social structures and realities. The purpose of the project is to create the conditions for a serious discussion between professionals practicing contemporary visual art in the three countries. The sharing of information on the respective working situations between the authors participating in the project will help us track in detail the professional status and working environment of Bulgarian artists as compared with those in the partner countries. This makes it possible, after bringing the Talks project to a close, to analyze what improvements in the field of contemporary visual art are needed in both the governmental and nongovernmental sectors.

So far interviews have been taken from the artists HR-Stamenov, Valyo Tchenkov, Boryana Rossa, Dan Tenev, and Mihail Mihailov.

Project partners

Documentaries