Manifesta purposely strives to keep its distance from what are often seen as the dominant centres of artistic production, instead seeking fresh and fertile terrain for the mapping of a new cultural topography.

Miryana Todorova, BG

Miryana Todorova’s collapsible and expandable structures respond to migration as a permanent – and potentially utopian – condition. Constructed from found objects, such as portable wardrobes, suitcases, umbrellas or trolley bags, her creations exude mutability.

They can transform in the blink of an eye from enclosures to extensions of the body and existing architectures. And they can collapse again just as swiftly. Todorova views the structures she makes as interactive movables, hybrids and clusters, as skins, shells, dwellings and parasites. She uses them to instigate performative situations and collaborative actions in public space.

These invite discourse around the nature of community formation and the constant negotiation that sustains it. As a form of artistic research on solidarity and interdependence, Todorova’s practice charts the limits of the terrain which people can navigate and the scope of that which they can comfortably share and exchange.