For the first time in Bulgaria was launched an academy offering creative courses in a Western model. There are also scholarships.
DOMA Art Foundation, in partnership with DOZA Gallery, are taking on the difficult task of filling this gap in education in our country. This is how the idea for a New Creative Academy was born. It offers contemporary art education in three-month courses – alternatives to current models of education.
The academy launches with six courses – “Exhibition Design”, where we will learn what makes an exhibition perfect. – “Art and Science” – the point of intertwining of the two in the contemporary world – “Performance” – practice and critical exchange. – “Cultural Management” – advice and skills for management, implementation, motivation, work and team development. – “Creating advertising and cultural product” – provocative and innovative approaches to communication in culture and art.
The mentors in the team are some of the most popular and successful specialists in their respective fields in our country with extensive experience at the international level, ready to share it.
Among them is Yassen Markov (Technobeton), who, after a prestigious scholarship to the Akademie Schloss Solitude, developed a new way to create and present theoretical information, included in a number of books and magazines, such as ARCH +, Tank Magazine and others. He teaches at the Technical University of Berlin, the Architectural Association in London, organizes workshops and works as a freelancer with clients such as Mercedes, Porsche, Bosch, Hugo Boss, Swarovski and others.
After him, we must mention Voin de Voin – one of the most famous Bulgarian performance artists, recognized abroad, with a solid education at some of the most elite universities such as DasArts and Gerrit Rietveld Academy in Amsterdam, Goldsmiths College in London, Ecole International de Cinema et Realization (EICAR), Paris, where he is often a guest speaker. After passing through Documenta 14 Athens, Manifesta 11 in Zurich, the parallel program of the Venice Biennale in 2015 and elsewhere, he settled in Sofia, where he has been managing the independent art space “Æther” for several years.
Among the other mentors is Aksinia Peycheva, who often collaborates with scientists and laboratories for her projects and is one of the few Bulgarian participants in Ars Electronica, and a current lecturer at the National Academy of Arts.
Martina Stefanova – cultural manager, curator and critic, co-founder of the art foundation DOMA. She graduated from the Moscow State University and specialized in animation in South Korea. Producer and co-organizer in a number of projects of various scales, such as the International Festivals of Contemporary Art, together with South Korea, Russia, the Scandinavian countries and the projects “KvARTal”, “KvARTal Festival” and others. Winner of the Forbes Bulgaria award “30 under 30” in the category “Art, Culture and Media” and “NEXT Generation” – a competition for young business leaders of the newspaper “Capital”.
Milena Edvig – advertiser and co-founder of DOZA Gallery, Maxim Stoimenov, current creative director of the advertising agency “B + RED”. Both have many years of experience in creating and developing advertising campaigns and creative products promoting socially engaged projects and initiatives for business and the non-governmental sector.
All this sounds more than attractive, especially in times of pandemic when travel is very limited, but even more so when we can see education on such level in our country. The courses start in March and last for three months (100 teaching hours) and will be held both online and on-site in the spacious gallery “DOZA”, the independent space “Æther” – both in the heart of Sofia, the studios of artists, labs or otherwise, depending on the design of each of the mentors.
The enrollment and recruitment of scholarship holders starts right now on the website newcreative.academy until there no free slots, and at the end of the month, the selected ones will be announced. You may like not one, but several courses. Participation in the New Creative Academy is quite possible and can help you reorient or supplement the classical educational program. Each course ends with an exhibition in the gallery and an accompanying program, followed by the required certificate. The dynamic environment of the educational alternative supports the cooperation and exchange between the participants, mentors and guest specialists, developing a critical and strongly argued aesthetic view of our environment, preparing specialists with ready-made solutions. It is in them that our hope for a better future, in which culture is a priority and a good environment is a necessity. The New Creative Academy is implemented with the financial support of NFC under the “One-Year Program for Support of Private Professional Organizations in the Field of Arts”.
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