Cultural Nomads: Visions on the Themes and Concepts of 20 Contemporary Artists
Art Project Depot presents the new additions to the "Herbarium" collection at the Bulgarian Cultural Institute in Berlin with the exhibition "Cultural Nomads". Among the participants are not only German visual artists, but also artists from Bulgaria, Austria, Japan and Turkey who live and work in Germany. The participating artists are Dagmar Schürer, Egil Sjöbjörnsson, Fabian Vogl, Fanny Spong, Hans Peter Kuhn, Ivan Kostolov, Ivan Panteleev, Junko Vada, Mariana Vasileva, Marie Lin Speckert, Marlene Bart, Marta Djurina, Mehtap Baidu, Sibin Vasilev, Shifa Girindzhi, Valyo Chenkov, Vikenti Komitski, Viktor Petrov, Zara Alexandrova and Zoran Georgiev. The curator of the exhibition is Irina Batkova, who has organized and curated exhibitions in places such as: Künstlerhaus, Vienna, Basilica Cistern, Istanbul, Sofia Arsenal - Museum of Contemporary Art, State Museum of Oriental Art, Moscow, Akbank Sanat, Istanbul, Center for Contemporary Art - Banya Starinna, Plovdiv, Port Warehouse No. 5, Varna, City Art Gallery Varna and others.
In the era of globalization, cultural nomadism transcends the boundaries of migration and becomes a conscious choice - a life between identities, territories and belongings. The exhibition shows how contemporary artists navigate these changing cultural spaces, transforming memory, personal history and national identity into evolving artistic languages. Tracing artistic networks across political borders, the project reveals how cultural nomads create new perspectives for today's social, political and ecological reality.
"Herbarium is not just a model for exhibitions, but a platform for the storage and exchange of ideas," says curator Irina Batkova. "Its mission is to document and disseminate the visions and creative energies of contemporary artists from all over the world. Its unique structure allows the collection to grow organically, building a network of cultural exchange that connects generations, geographies and artistic disciplines.
Cultural Nomads presents works that unite different artistic strategies and provoke reflection on a reality in which wars for territories and constantly developing sciences and technologies coexist. This contradictory nature of the modern world creates new spaces for artistic interpretations and for debate on the question of our responsibility towards the future.
The project is implemented in partnership with the State Institute for Culture under the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and with the financial support of the Recovery and Resilience Plan of the Republic of Bulgaria under BC- RRP -1 1 0 20, a two-session grant scheme aimed at the creation of Bulgarian productions and co-productions in the cultural and creative industries sector and their promotion on the European and international art markets.