REVIEW 2025 – WITH SNEJANA KRASTEVA
- viktoriadraganova
- 5 days ago
- 3 min read
The Journal of Social Vision’s end-of-year survey gathers the perspectives of colleagues, curators, and critics on the most important events and topics in art in 2025. Participants were invited to highlight standout exhibitions, projects, and figures; identify key international influences; note significant critical publications and media; and reflect on the disappointments that generated tensions within the cultural landscape.
We continue with the answers and observations of Snejana Krasteva, independent curator, co-founder and co-director of the Eastern Balkan Institute of Art and Architecture.
Key events during the year in Bulgaria
Sofia Art Fair (02.-05.10.2025) is an important event because it is an attempt to create a local, regional and international market framework in Bulgaria.
BUNA 3 (03.-08.10.2025) continues to establish itself as a significant visual arts festival. The 2025 edition established a huge transfer of energy to Varna with a pronounced sensitivity to the ecology of the region.
The Varusha South Festival (15.-18.08.2025) in Veliko Tarnovo stands out as an example of working with the locality and its inhabitants, of urban transformations and cultural interventions that are initiated from the bottom up, and confirms that much more meaningful projects have been undertaken outside the capital recently, not least due to the great local support at many levels.
"Acqua alta. History of Bulgarian National Participations in the Venice Biennale 1910–2024", Kapana Gallery, Plovdiv, curator: Svetlana Kuyumdzhieva and Plamen Petrov, 13.12.2024-20.02.2025) is a key exhibition, even though it started at the end of 2024, because in 2025 it continued to structure the debates around Bulgaria's place in the international context. The exhibition is an important gesture of archiving, visibility and institutional memory.
National Autumn Exhibitions Plovdiv "A Piece of a River", curator Vessela Nozharova (01.09.-30.09.2025) - besides the works being well selected and organically fitting into the spaces, this "revival" or opening of the traditional autumn exhibitions to contemporary art is important to respect and encourage.
"Acqua alta. History of Bulgarian national participations in the Venice Biennale 1910–2024", Kapana Gallery, Plovdiv, Photo: Vanessa Popova
Key international events
Helsinki Biennale - a good example of a biennale, much of which is outdoors (on an island) and where international curators are invited to curate together with local curators. [1]
Bukhara Biennale (I haven't been there in person), the first edition of this Central Asian biennial in Uzbekistan, curated by Diana Campbell, and fully supported and organized by the state. It became an example of how local artisans can partner with contemporary artists. It also opened up architectural monuments that had been closed to visitors for decades.
A book, text or media platform of particular significance in 2025.
The texts of the artist Behzad K. Nouri around his term “ briftopia ” — the main concept for the 26th edition of the Gabrovo Biennial, which we will curate together with him.
The biggest disappointment of the year
The Bulgarian government.
Major themes for 2025
Themes that have emerged over the past year and that I often reflect on: the power of art in times of crisis, the distillation of a stated politicized position, the apparently reactive approach in many artistic practices. Our diminishing ability to imagine the future is also worrisome.
What will drive us in 2026?
I find it very difficult to answer the last two questions. Personally, I would be driven by the desire to contribute to some meaningful cultural processes in Bulgaria and our wider Eastern Balkan region, to work a little more cohesively, and for the scene here to become more visible regionally and internationally.
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