"Crossing" by Bora Petkova and Obreten Obretenov at the Varna City Art Gallery

"Crossing" by Bora Petkova and Obreten Obretenov at the Varna City Art Gallery

The exhibition brings together objects, photography, and words in a narrative about memory and the passage between two worlds. The opening is on November 10.

The Varna City Art Gallery "Boris Georgiev" presents the exhibition "Crossing" by Bora Petkova and Obreten Obretenov from November 10 to 29, 2026.
The vernissage is on November 10 from 18:00 to 20:00.

The project begins far from the city, the studio, and the exhibition hall – in an old, long-uninhabited house in the Strandzha village of Brodilovo. Bora Petkova buys the property with the intention of one day making it her home, but gradually the encounter with the house and the other objects within it transforms into an artistic process. The objects cease to be mere traces of a past use and begin to carry a narrative about the people who lived there, about memory, and about the possibility of it being recognized by someone who has not inherited it by blood.

"In this sense, the artistic gesture is very minimal, as it is exhausted in the creation of meaning. It is making sense," shares Bora Petkova with Nina Lokmadjieva. In "Crossing," the artist works with found objects in the house, which she does not remove from their natural environment beforehand. The process itself takes place on-site – among the walls, clothes, furniture, and belongings left behind by strangers to her. For Petkova, this gradual separation is essential: the object must transition from a practical item to a work of art, without the connection to the place being abruptly severed.

Alongside the found objects in the exhibition, the poems of Bora Petkova are included. The words arise even before the actual work on the pieces – as a way for her to remain connected to the house from a distance. The archaic sound of some of the texts, in her words, is not a sought stylistic effect, but a language that comes naturally along with the thought.

An essential part of "Crossing" is the collaboration with Obreten Obretenov. The two meet in 2025 during Petkova's previous exhibition "Towards Oneself." The photographs he takes then attract her attention not for their documentarity, but for their ability to enter into the very works and create new connections between them. This vision prompts her to invite him to Brodilovo.

In the photographic images from the project, the human body enters the space of the old house not as an illustration, but as another bearer of the passage – between the material and the immaterial, the present and the past, personal and foreign memory.

The title "Crossing" carries both the literal and metaphorical direction of the project. For Bora Petkova, the two banks are Varna and Brodilovo, the current life and the desired home. But beyond them lies a broader understanding of human life as a passage between the unknown before birth and the unknown after death.

The exhibition does not offer a definitive answer to these questions. When asked to summarize "Crossing" in one sentence, Bora Petkova responds directly: "I am not ready to summarize because the process is not finished."

"CROSSING" – an exhibition by Bora Petkova and Obreten Obretenov, November 10 - 29, 2026.
Vernissage: November 10, 18:00 - 20:00.

Varna City Art Gallery "Boris Georgiev" - Varna
Varna, 1 L. Karavelov St.
Working hours: Monday - Saturday: 9:30 - 17:30, day off - Sunday.

http://varnacityartgallery.com