Thought Experiment

Aksiniya Peycheva

Structura Project Room is a special space in the gallery dedicated to showcasing young artists and curators. Curator under 35 selected by competition will realize 4 exhibitions per year. The initiative is supported by the National Culture Fund.

This year the competition for curator was won by Aksiniya Peycheva. Expect the first exhibition in June. Here we introduce the curator and the main aspects of the idea to be developed.

The term “Thought Experiment” describes an experience that “tests” the validity of a theory in the search for a concrete (or in this case, possibly abstract) answer. The project consists of conducting a series of informal conversations in which an artist talks to an expert in a given scientific field. This creates a kind of flow of information that may (or may not) influence the subsequent creation of an artistic product presented in a solo exhibition in Structura Project Room.

Conversations happen under certain rules that are in practice completely relative, aiming only to put the parties in a state where an exchange – of ideas, of concepts, of directions of thought – can be created between them.

After the conversations, the artist goes on to work on a solo exhibition that is (or is not) influenced by the discussion.

It is possible to declare the experiment successful at a harmonious or disharmonious level of communication. In the same cases, it is also possible to pronounce it unsuccessful.

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Aksiniya Peycheva (b. 1990, Kyustendil, Bulgaria) lives and works in Sofia. She graduated in mural painting at the National Academy of Art Sofia., where she later received a PhD (2019) and is currently a lecturer, majoring in mural painting. Graduated from the educational program for young artists “Close Encounters – Visual Dialogues school4artists” of ICA-Sofia (2017). She is a member of the Institute of Contemporary Art since 2021. Her solo exhibitions include: PROCESS ANATOMY#1: A Tale of the End (2022), curated by Vasil Vladimirov, Structura Gallery, Sofia; A Tale of the End (2021) at Heerz Tooya Gallery, Veliko Tarnovo, Bulgaria; Bioreconstruction (…of a future moment) (2019), ICA-Sofia Gallery curated by Nedko Solakov; Cartography of Trauma (2018), ICA-Sofia Gallery curated by Luchezar Boyadjiev. Her works have been exhibited at Manifesta 14, Prishtina, Kosovo; Drugomore Gallery, Rijeka, Croatia; Ars Electronica Festival, Austria.

The focus of her work is the process of “visual translation”, where she explores possible ways of moving pieces of information between different fields of knowledge – “how one or several scientific fields can be combined to answer a question important only for art”. She often collaborates with scientists, and her projects are accompanied by a theoretical part, resulting from a long research on certain topics, which include the subject of the visual translation of music or pain.