Platform Alumni Artist Focus – Krasimira Butseva
4th Apr 2018
Krasimira Butseva was selected for the Platform Graduate Award 2016. Her graduate work produced at the University of Portsmouth, was exhibited at Aspex Gallery.
“There were many benefits of being selected for Platform, such as having the brilliant opportunity to exhibit my work which I had just finished for my BA (Hons) Photography degree in a professional, well-known gallery space. Platform allowed meeting with other creatives working in different mediums and interests, and to start friendships that have continued ever since. I also think that also being selected for Platform made me believe more in myself and in my own practice. After I was chosen for Platform, I went on to have more than ten exhibitions around the UK, Bulgaria and China, with the same body of work that was first shown at Aspex.
“After Platform, I started an MA in Photography at the University of Portsmouth, and also commenced a body of work about the repressions of communism which took place in my home country, Bulgaria. The project, Balkan Ours, studies the atrocities committed by the communist regime that ruled in Bulgaria between 1946 and 1989.
“Through the use of photography, video, archival documents and footage, the work contemplates and makes comment on the aftermath of the terror. With reference to the histories of the People’s Court, the forced labour camps, the revival process, governmental buildings and public spaces used for holding hostages and committing murders, the work aims to ask questions of the events that took place. Interviewing and listening to the memories and inherited accounts of different generations of people from individuals, local families to non-governmental and state institutions, research was gathered to create the various strands of the work. The work depicts my journey through the spaces, artefacts and stories of remembrance, juxtaposed with the collective denial of the human rights violations carried out by the totalitarian regime. The irretrievability of the truth, creates a space for reflection and acknowledgement of the past.
“Balkan Ours is currently shown at the Fine Art Gallery Lovech, Bulgaria until 30 April 2018.
“On 14 May at Phoenix Brighton, I will be giving a talk about my practice along with Lina Ivanova (who is also a Platform Alumni Artist), and we will also speak about our photography organisation Revolv. Also, I may potentially be showing my work in Brighton and in Plovdiv later on this year.”
Krasimira took over the CVAN SE Instagram account on 9 April.
Image: The Second Quarry, Lovech © Krasimira Butseva, 2017