Presentation of the Herbarium Project at the National Salon of Contemporary Art in Bucharest
The Herbarium exhibition, part of the National Salon of Contemporary Art, will be held at the Mobius Gallery in Bucharest from October 23 to November 15, 2025. The official opening is on October 23 at 6:30 p.m.
The Herbarium Project explores the working environment in contemporary culture by creating a collection and archive accessible to the general public at herbariumcollection.com.
Each participant presents their creative practice in a specially crafted box – a miniature space that preserves ideas, processes and gestures of contemporary art. The concept is the work of curator Irina Batkova, and the project develops according to a network principle – each invited artist selects two new participants, building a dynamic exchange of ideas and visual languages.
The Bucharest edition of the salon features Janire Echebarria de Dios, Kai Masayuki, Gonul Nuhoglu, Aksiniya Peycheva, Berndnaut Smilde and Sofia Dimova. Their works combine individual and universal themes – from human vulnerability and natural cycles to digital identity and the memory of images.
Bulgarian artists Aksiniya Peycheva and Sofia Dimova present new works that expand the field of interaction between art, science and technology. Peycheva transforms colonies of microorganisms into constellations, searching for the hidden structures of time, and Dimova builds a visual dialogue between the virtual and real “self”, inviting the viewer to critically reflect on the digital ego.
The selection highlights the diversity of visual strategies through which the artists explore the boundaries between the inner and outer worlds, time and memory.
The project is implemented in partnership with the State Institute for Culture under the Minister of Foreign Affairs and with the financial support of the Recovery and Resilience Plan of the Republic of Bulgaria under BG-RRP-11.020 - 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 stage.