Artist: Dessislava Terzieva
Exhibition title: in between the Other
Venue: Sarieva at DOT Sofia, Sofia, Bulgaria
Date: June 14 – July 14, 2024
Photography: ©Yana Lozeva / all images copyright and courtesy of the artist and Sarieva, Plovidv
Every time I try to throw away a pair, she tries to “save” it, to repair it, to fill a cushion with it, tie a garbage bag or filter home-made juice – she can find tens of different uses for old stockings or pantyhose. It’s like she still lives in the fifties.
Slavenka Drakulić, How We Survived Communism & Even Laughed, 1991
Sarieva/Gallery is pleased to present the solo show “между другото” (in between the Other) by Bulgarian-American contemporary artist Dessislava Terzieva. The exhibition will take place within the space of Sarieva/Gallery at DOT Sofia.
Terzieva employs collage, photography, sculpture, installation, and performance, presenting her works in galleries, public spaces, and independent organizations. For her first exhibition at Sarieva/Gallery, the artist creates works on-site using found objects and materials from Mexico and Detroit to Sofia, locations where she has been living since graduating with her MFA from Cranbrook Academy of Art in 2021. This nomadic existence, in addition to her immigrant upbringing, has influenced her approach to creation.
“I am like a sponge: I gather materials and visual inspiration everywhere I go. I explore the subtle differences and universal similarities between places, cultures, people, and when right moment comes, I squeeze everything out of me. Although it happens quickly – this working process is deliberate, intuitive, and seeks to tap into a psychic energy that ultimately dictates when an artwork is completed. The results are both humorous and sentimental. Lighthearted but deep.” – says Terzieva about her current method of working.
The exhibition ‘между другото’ – ‘in between the Other’ is as autobiographical as it is a commentary on globalization, migration, and mass commerce. Sarieva/Gallery is located in the Woman’s Market neighborhood, a mere walk from the artist’s grandmother’s home, a location that is as significant to her as it is to Sofia’s history and present-day cultural makeup. As a result, a lifetime of personal experiences manifest themselves into a myriad of sculptures improvised using materials gathered from transnational travels and the immediate environment. For example, photographs taken within the vicinity over a decade are framed inside household items purchased in the shops between her home and the gallery. These hybrid objects exist between past and present, rooted in cultural traditions and everyday observations along city streets, such as clothes being hung out to dry and CCTV cameras observing daily life. Terzieva’s approach to the art object is playful, easily changing, and replaces the connotations of the real objects and their functions.
Mistranslations and wordplay exist in the artwork titles as they do the exhibition name itself, as ’между другото’ – ‘in between the Other’ has a double meaning depending on the language it is translated in. In Bulgarian, it is an expression meaning “by the way”, used in the sense of something that happens among other things. Alternatively, the literal translation of the words into English references the poetics of relation as laid out by French philosopher and writer Édouard Glissant. Glissant and Terzieva, alike, are concerned with the ways in which encounters with Others transform identity, thus highlighting cultures ability to evolve and reshape into new and unforeseeable entities. This proposition can be seen throughout the exhibition, being best depicted in Terzieva’s Balkanization of Mexican papel picado by infusing it with patterns of traditional Bulgarian embroidery.
Dessislava Terzieva’s exhibition at Sarieva/Gallery shows the blissful misfortune of the 1990s generation in its sentimental wavering between the visual symbols of the past. It is also a visual search for the possibilities of determining, in the continuous state of translating one thing into another, the need for migration from one place to another, as well as of the state between unconditioned and biased interpretation.
Desislava Terzieva is a Bulgarian-American contemporary artist born in 1989 in Bulgaria, currently living between Detroit, Sofia and Mexico City. She earned a BA in Political Science from Oakland University and an MA in Sculpture from Cranbrook Academy of Art in 2021 where she won the Museum Purchase Award and her work was accessioned into the permanent collection of Cranbrook Art Museum. Prior to attending Cranbrook, Terzieva became a prominent figure in the Detroit art scene, exhibiting in off-site locations, curating independent spaces, and executing interactive and immersive installations in the public sphere. In 2021, she founded FIDANA Foundation, a non-profit organization facilitating contemporary art and artistic interventions in public spaces based on pre-existing infrastructure. Terzieva has exhibited in the United States and internationally, including: Manifesta 14 in Pristina, Kosovo; Citronne Gallery in Athens, Greece; ART-O-RAMA in Marseille, France; KO-OP in Sofia, Bulgaria; Swimmingpool in Sofia, Bulgaria; Punta Gallery in Sofia, Bulgaria; College for Creative Studies – Center Galleries in Detroit, Michigan; Sculpture Center in Cleveland, Ohio; Æther Haga in Amsterdam, Netherlands; Huron Art Space in San Francisco, California; Mönchskirche in Salzwedel, Germany; Guck mal Günther, Kunst in Lenzburg, Switzerland; International Biennale of Santorini in Santorini, Greece; Cranbrook Art Museum in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan. She has been awarded a residency at Hestia (Serbia), Bedsuy Art Residency (New York), Atelierhaus Hilmsen (Germany), and World of Co (Bulgaria).-
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