by Alison Hugill // Apr. 17, 2026
This year’s Bulgarian Pavilion, opening at the 61st Venice Biennale of Art next month, is framed as the headquarters of a fictional research lab, set in a future political landscape. In ‘The Federation of Minor Practices’—which will feature films and a collaborative work by four Bulgarian artists (Veneta Androva, Gery Georgieva, Maria Nalbantova and Rayna Teneva)—care becomes the foundation for a new political imaginary. Functioning as a suspended, transitional and experimental space, the pavilion spans different temporalities and engages visitors through play, encouraging collaboration and shared orientation. Entering the space, we are invited to be attentive to the so-called “minor practices”—the quiet actions and little moments both in the show’s content and its process of creation—with the aim of considering a new political vision grounded in collectivity. We spoke to the pavilion’s curator, Martina Yordanova, about the thinking behind the exhibition and why she brought together these four artists to collaborate on its realization.
Bulgarian Pavilion team // Photo by Maximilian Pramatarov
Alison Hugill: ‘The Federation of Minor Practices’ is described as the headquarters of a fictional research lab operating within a care-oriented political imagination. Can you unpack this for us a bit?
Martina Yordanova: This idea has been on my mind for some time, shaped by observing the political situation not only in Bulgaria but more broadly. In Bulgaria, we are going through a profound political crisis. On the 19th of April, we will have elections for the eighth time in four years. It feels like a complete breakdown of the system, a situation where it becomes difficult to imagine what could still function.
I found myself constantly asking what could possibly work, since it seems that everything has already been attempted. From there came a speculative thought: what if women were in positions of power, something that, in this context, has never truly been tried. This became the starting point for the project and for my approach to the collaboration with the four artists. The team is entirely composed of women, including the graphic designer, exhibition designer, game designer, the producer and commissioner. In total, we are ten women working on the project.
The project takes the form of an experiment, a kind of research laboratory, also because of how we began working together. This is not a pre-existing collective, but rather something that has formed through the process itself. ‘The Federation of Minor Practices’ is a constellation that emerged while preparing the Biennale application. As a curator, I was already familiar with their work, but we had not previously collaborated closely. I had a strong intuition that this combination could be meaningful, and I proposed an approach based on a horizontal and experimental structure.
Four of their video works are included in the pavilion, and we used the themes within these works as a point of departure. I invited the artists to develop a shared piece specifically for the pavilion. This creates a dual structure: on one hand, a collective work produced together, and on the other, a space that engages the audience and functions as an active research environment.
‘The Federation of Minor Practices’ // Copyright Studio Gabbro
AH: You mention this interactive environment. I read that it’s based on computer games and activated through play: what does that look like?
MY: The starting point is the four video works, which are produced or adjusted specifically for the pavilion. From these works, we extract key themes and translate them into a new, collaborative piece. This takes the form of a gamified environment that we are currently developing. It is quite an extensive process. We are working together with a game designer and a game developer, both of whom are also women. It was important for me to maintain this continuity within the team. There is a particular way of working together that I value here, one that allows for negotiation, mutual support and a willingness to temporarily step away from individual artistic trajectories in order to focus on a shared goal.
Developing a video game is a significant challenge, especially since most of the artists have not worked in this field before. Veneta Androva is the one who initially proposed the idea. As a digital artist, she brings the most experience in this area, and her input has been essential in shaping the process.
Veneta Androva: ‘Spray and Pray,’ 2026, animation, 15 min. // Courtesy of the artist, © Veneta Androva
AH: Can you tell us about some of the ideas you explore in that collective work?
MY: We are currently developing a catalogue of critical questions that address our own existence and how we might imagine shaping it differently. The game unfolds through several levels, each structured around a series of questions. It is divided into approximately five sections, and each section leads to a specific index that we have defined in advance, such as the Index of Care, the Index of Fear or the Index of Power. At the end of the game, these indexes are brought together to generate a result. This result reflects the kind of political future the participant has shaped through their choices and the path they have taken.
In this sense, the game can be understood as an exercise in thinking. It is intended to open up different sensitivities toward the world we inhabit, as well as toward the world we might wish to create. The spatial structure of the pavilion follows a temporal logic. You enter from the perspective of the future, through an open entrance with mirrored walls, where you are confronted with your own reflection. This acts as an initial activation of perception. From there, you move into the gamified environment, which represents the present and invites active participation. The past is articulated through the four films, whose underlying conditions and narratives are translated into elements within the present space.
The information we gather from each visitor contributes to the evolving state of the pavilion. In this way, it functions as a laboratory, a space of ongoing experimentation that is constantly changing. Each visit produces a different experience, shaped by the accumulation of responses over time.
Maria Nalbantova: ‘Swamp Song,’ 2026, film, 9 min. // Courtesy of the artist, © Maria Nalbantova
AH: There’s an attentiveness here to what you call “minor practices,” echoing the Biennale’s overall theme, ‘In Minor Keys.’ What does this term mean to you and the artists?
MY: In Bulgarian, the word “federation” is grammatically feminine, and this was important for us. We were looking for a term that could hold both a sense of collectivity and a horizontal structure, while also carrying a feminine dimension. A federation suggests a union in which each part retains its autonomy, and this reflects both the way we have worked together and how the project is conceived.
The idea of “minor practices” emerges through both the films and our collaborative process. For us, it refers to forms of attention that are often overlooked, quiet and sustained gestures that unfold over time. These are practices embedded in everyday life, where political, ecological and technological conditions are already present, even if they are not always immediately visible.
Gery Georgieva: ‘UWU Channel Radiance,’ 2020, 7/1 Channel HD video and sound, 9 mins 29 secs // Courtesy of the artist, photo © Damian GriLiths
Each of the films approaches a different field of contemporary reality, not to illustrate a single argument, but to register specific environments and tensions. In ‘UWU Channel Radiance,’ Gery Georgieva draws on digital mythologies, online performance and gaming culture to explore how identity and belief are produced within networked environments. The work constructs an oracle-like figure assembled from fragments of internet aesthetics, moving between irony and sincerity to question how authority and knowledge circulate in spaces where performance and authenticity overlap.
In ‘Spray and Pray,’ Veneta Androva focuses on the infrastructures of disinformation through the phenomenon of so-called “mushroom websites.” The film follows how fragments of information travel across digital networks, showing how misinformation emerges not from a single source, but from the interaction between technological systems, economic conditions and human behavior.
Rayna Teneva: ‘Geography is Destiny,’ 2026, digital film, 80 min. // Photo by Tilmann Rödiger, © Rayna Teneva, courtesy of the artist
Rayna Teneva’s ‘Geography Is Destiny’ examines the Rose Valley in Bulgaria, where the cultivation of roses exists alongside the production of arms. The film reveals how beauty, labor and violence coexist within the same landscape, tracing how global systems shape local realities that might otherwise appear harmonious.
In ‘Swamp Song,’ Maria Nalbantova focuses on the Dragoman Marsh, where she has been participating in a residency program over several years. The film brings together this long-term engagement with a choral composition based on the marsh’s untold histories, performed on site by a local women’s choir composed of elderly participants. It becomes a reflection on care as both an ecological and collective act.
Taken together, these works do not form a unified narrative. Instead, they register a field of tensions where familiar frameworks begin to falter, and where the present appears as unstable and open.
Exhibition Info
Bulgarian Pavilion
Group Show: ‘The Federation of Minor Practices’
Opening Reception: Thursday, May 7, 2026; 6 pm
Exhibition: May 9–Nov. 22, 2026
bulgarianpavilionvenice.art
Centro Culturale Don Orione Artigianelli
Fondamenta Zattere Ai Gesuati, 919, 30123 Venice, Italy, click here for map
