participants: Svetozara Alexandrova, Ivo Bistrichki, Rada Boukova, Petko Dourmana, Nikola Enchev/Juliana Mori, Simeon Stoilov, Krassimir Terziev, Sofia Hristozova/Marta Dimitrova, Veronika Tzekova

curator: Svetlana Kuyumdzhieva

“The Big Bang” is a project by curator Svetlana Kuyumdzhieva, in which the theory of how the Universe came into being is a symbol of an ending and a beginning.

The exhibition recreates a different world that has grown out of the lessons and the dramatic environmental threats and catastrophes of our time. It is a world that takes shape in darkness and in post-apocalyptic conditions in which documents and myths, fiction and reality merge into one.

The project’s idea comprises a set of problems about the relationships between man and his surroundings in the context of climate change. Drawing on the energy of contemporary Bulgarian artists and designers, the “Bang” is an experiment that turns the gallery into a laboratory. Through 30 April the space will host an unusual, artificially created and mutated ecosystem whose aim is to point up certain drastic problems and offer some solutions.

New, adapted species; piles of waste packaging; guerrilla gardening; threats from outer space; environmentally responsible architecture; the emotions and sensations that stir the people living on “Desert Earth” after a colossal environmental catastrophe; the consequences of human presence—these are the new world’s building blocks.