An Introduction to my collaborative project with Ivilina Kouneva
Ivilina and I met during a residency at the Artscape Gibraltar Center of the Arts on the Toronto Islands in July 2022. One week was enough to realise that we have a similar vision in how we perceive human relationships and the stories that underlie them. Both seduced by
multilayered imagery, where mythical lurks through daily life, we came to embrace the idea of a long term collaboration.
We like to look at our project as an undemanding process where threads from various directions will be pulled while exploring the crossing points in our creative work. It is rewarding to build on narratives from different cultures linking them to our personal stories.
The title “For Rituals and Visuals: A Myth under my Skin” best describes the core of our project. These are short phrases taken from two of my own poems.
We met again for a week this July in Gascony, France. It was a vital test for our collaborative ideas and an opportunity to plan for the year ahead. With excitement and gratitude we realised that rituals are deeply embodied in a meaningful slower-paced culture. Awareness in simple daily rituals that we take for granted may unlock unexpected stories and lead to spiritual depth. We think of this experience as the opposite of being increasingly “wired” and perceive it as firm support for the ecology of human relations.
Our way of working so far is exchanging visuals and words, observing their impact on our respective creative imaginations. We anticipate that the conversation will gradually expand and might even include like-minded creatives internationally.