site.btaSilvana Ilieva to Present Contemporary Art Made from Hemp in Solo Exhibition

Artist Silvana Ilieva will present contemporary art made from hemp in a solo exhibition. The exhibition, titled “Regeneration”, will open on September 4 at the Little Bird Place gallery in Sofia, said the gallery's team.

The exhibition will be curated by Teodora Konstantinova and Radoslav Mehandzhiiski.

The Little Bird Place gallery team pointed out that with her exhibition, Ilieva aims to immerse viewers in an exploration of the artistic potential of industrial hemp, a material with a rich historical background, ecological sustainability, and aesthetic versatility.

Hemp was cultivated on a large scale in Bulgaria until the mid-20th century. In the following decades, due to various processes and circumstances, its place in the economic cycle was taken over by other livelihoods and industrial interests, such as the production of cotton and synthetic textile substitutes.

Another nuance in the historical overview is the stigmatization of the plant, associated with psychoactive varieties. Today, hemp is gradually regaining its status as a raw material with ecological and market potential, a substitute for widely used materials with an unacceptably high environmental footprint. It is in this broader context that Silvana Ilieva's works come to life. Sculptural objects made of treated hemp fibers, which seem to have penetrated the present from another semi-fantastic botanical era. In her works, on the border between sculpture, architecture, and textiles, the artist does not attempt to imitate nature; she forms a sense of a new nature, brought to another level of consciousness. In its social orientation, the project reflects on the ecological sustainability of the material and at the same time embodies it visually, add the organizers of the exhibition.

The exhibition can be viewed until September 21.

Silvana Ilieva is an artist born in 1989 in Sofia. To achieve maximum creative expression, she works with various media, including contemporary textiles, painting, photography, drawing, video, etc. She graduated in painting from the National School of Fine Arts and in scenography from the National Academy for Theatre and Film Arts. She studied digital arts before graduating with a master's degree in textile art from the National Academy of Arts.