Exhibition by Kalina Dimitrova on poetry by Alexandar Gabrovski
Curator Boyana Djikova
In the exhibition Eternal Return, artist Kalina Dimitrova creates a spatial interpretation of a poem by Alexandar Gabrovski out of gelatin. The text marks the life path of a shooting star in the earth's solid, as if it were not a cosmic body, but a living tissue, a victim of its own collapse. Its vitality, its warm core, we recognize in the choice of material for Kalina's works - entirely made of organic matter, in the process of slow transformation.
There is already a narrative in the medium - the reworking of bone and cartilage and the corresponding application of some form of violence to its extraction. In this sense, it follows the storyline of the poem itself (softness and vitality - gradual hardening).
The final product, however, does not recall of its story. Gelatin is used extensively in the confectionery industry to create attractive objects of desire. When properly processed, we also notice in Kalina's work, it achieves saturated colors and a transparency that lets light through as if it were a vitrage.
Alexander's work depicts a body, pure and fragile, belonging to a world elsewhere that, unsuited to our imperfect corporeal one, suffers a process of decay. It deals with the human desire to consume purity, the possible (?) communion. Human is present, but almost imperceptibly, through the prism of his desires and fears - he is something of a timid participant in the narrative of his own existence. The poem portrays the miracle that this kind of event would bring into our world - the umbilical cords of the fish entangling one another and fulfilling all possible storylines simultaneously.
The poem "unravels" in the vitrine of POSTA, but the story in the two spaces is not to be read linearly, but circularly, drawing out the cyclicality of the story - sporadically we are presented with an opportunity for redemption that, if not grasped in time, leaves us, disappointed. Rarely, but not once, a star flies towards us, whose heart, if we devour, will gift us eternal youth. Of course, human fate is such that we fail in this endeavor. The star, in turn, will fall again and again, perforating our atmosphere, burning up as it goes.
And if the drama of human existence is its doom of eternal return, Kalina Dimitrova and Alexander Gabrowski capture precisely this brief and ephemeral moment of crowding and gazing at world and reality, earthly and heavenly - and isn't that the pledge of our existence?
The project is supported by the Ministry of Culture
Stars scare away the fishes
as they fall into the lakes
their umbilical cords intertwine
and everything comes true
wished upon or not
as stars fall on earth
you worry
that we’ll fall into the sky
don’t be afraid
i say
the shooting star is a burning potato
so soft
you can cut it with a butter knife
afterwards it hardens
from the outside within
like a wound is covered with a bloody crust
its heart still pumping
protecting the silence of space
you should put it in your mouth
before it gets cold
by Alexandar Gabrovski
the star as it flies away
is gloom
like a piece of darkness
picked beneath the eyelid
at the end of the day collects its remains
from the earth and becomes one again
It punches our dreams instead of tickets
and lightens, sucked back by the sky
the star leaves us
we did not deserve it
The star shines
once it’s hidden from our sight
by Alexandar Gabrovski