Natalia Jordanova

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Natalia Jordanova -

 

As part of her ever-developing quest for possible worlds, the artistic practice of Natalia Jordanova (1991, Sofia, Bulgaria) is a subjective synthesis and material proposition of what defines the present moment. Through speculative fiction her work is a projection of the future, fabulating the unknown unknowns.

Jordanova builds context-aware installations through the deployment of various practices. They translate materialities and study the sculptural possibilities in the exchange between the digital and physical, the flat and three-dimensional. Her work engages with the shift of these realms, weaving together narratives of past accumulations and future speculations. Through the frameworks of science and history, she explore what it means to be human today in the interplay of natural and artificial beings, as well as human and non-human agents. She focuses on the condition defined by our relationship with technology, image, and language mediation, as well as the new understanding of materiality in a network-dominated age.

The artist examines how recent technological and tool progress alters emotionality and will affect human-to-human and human-to-machine communication in the foreseeable future. Her most recent work utilizes generative  artificial intelligence to explore its conceptual possibilities at the intersection of poetry and criticality. She investigates its fast-developing implications for human life and how it changes our understanding of reality. Her interests lie in its conceptual potential to contribute to historical continuity, care for silenced feminist histories, and question the role of AI in evolution.

 
  • 1991, Sofia, Bulgaria, lives and works in Amsterdam


    Education

    Dirty Art (MA),  Sandberg Institute/ Gerrit Rietveld Academie, Amsterdam 2018-2020

    Fine Arts, Royal Academy of Art, The Hague  2014-2018 

    Central Saint Martins, UAL, London 2016-2017 

    BA of Photography, National  Academy of Theatre and Film Arts, Sofia  2009-2013


    Awards and nominations

    BAZA Award for contemporary art, Bulgaria /upcoming/ 2025

    Winner of Cultural Perspectives Foundation’s “Per Aspera ad Astra“

    Fellowship Program 2022

    Nominee for BAZA Award for contemporary art, Bulgaria 2020

    Nominee for NN Art Award at Art Rotterdam 2020

    Nominee for BAZA Award for contemporary art, Bulgaria 2018

    The Secret Way, video, Trans – ideology Short Film Festival

    – Berlin, Short list 2012

    Otec Paisii TEXT – Plovdiv, Bulgaria, Short list 2012

    Best photography prize in the exhibition of Forum Honoris Causa,

    National Academy of Theatre and Film Arts, Sofia 2011

    Photosynthesis prize of FOTOAKADEMIKA, Sofia 2010

    The Magic of Color, contest, First prize and scholarship, Sofia 2010


    Selected exhibitions

    BAZA Award for contemporary art, Bulgaria /upcoming/ 2025

    Hommages, Galerie Fleur & Wouter, Amsterdam Art Week /upcoming/ 2025

    Unfair Amsterdam, Gashouder van Westergas 2024

    De Brakke Grond, ADE, Amsterdam /solo/ 2024

    The gods were tired when you fell, Saeva Dupka Cave, Bulgaria 2024

    Colourless green ideas sleep furiously, Arosita Gallery, Sofia /solo/ 2024

    To–Do List, 1m2 Tam, Veliko Turnovo, Bulgaria /solo/ 2024

    The Nature of Relations, BUNA forum for contemporary art, Varna 2024

    Aftermath: no humanity, no art, Cu29, Plovdiv /solo/ 2023

    Something Else ||| Biennale, Cairo /solo/ 2023

    Someone’s Utopia, Goethe-Institut, Cairo 2023

    Needles in a Haystack, National Art Gallery, Sofia 2023

    Present Myths or: Fifteen posters of nonexistent

    people and donkeys, watching a film at a locksmith atelier,

    Forum for Contemporary Visual Arts BUNA, Varna /solo/ 2023

    Ludic Century, Kunstpodium T, Tilburg 2023

    Deep daydream-reality: The Opening Scene,

    Sofia City Art Gallery, Bulgaria /solo/ 2023

    Process Anatomy, Project space Structura Gallery, Bulgaria /solo/ 2022

    How Soon is Now, Structura Gallery, Bulgaria 2022

    Market of desire: earthly/heavenly 2021

    Visits to Other Possible Worlds, Sofia Art Week,

    Goethe-Institut Bulgaria 2021

    NO ARTIST CAN PREDICT THE FUTURE?, KO-OP, Sofia 2021

    Symbiosis Series, POST, Arnhem 2021

    Cold Sweat, Het Hem, Amsterdam 2020

    The Console, Rosa Stern, Munich, Germany /solo/ 2020

    Authentic Spaces, Zeitz, Germany 2020

    BAZA Award for contemporary art, Sofia City Art Gallery, Bulgaria 2020

    Unfair Temporary Museum, Amsterdam 2020

    Art Rotterdam, New Art Section /solo/ 2020


    Residencies
    Halaqat project and Cairotronica at Goethe-Institut Cairo, Egypt 2023

    Visual art residency at iMAL, Brussels, as part of the

    Halaqat project part 1, BOZAR and Goethe-Institut Belgium 2022

    ‘Freispiel’, Rosa Stern Space, Munich, Germany 2020

    THIS IS FAKE, Zeitz, Germany 2020