Niya Pushkarova – Performance and Spatial Installation: Exploring the Eye-Level and Multiple Planes

May 16 – June 15, 2026

Opening: May 16, 2026, 9:00 PM

Naval Tower

The project explores the discrepancy between internal reactions and public silence — a condition in which personal positions remain unspoken due to fear, social pressure, and the need for approval. This tension between thought, feeling, and expression produces double standards and gradually leads to alienation from one’s own truth.

At its core lies a critical view of the egocentric subject and limited empathy — not only as a personal choice, but as a result of inherited models of self-preservation, encompassing both mental and spiritual impoverishment. In this context, apparent neutrality often becomes a form of complicity in social and political processes that reproduce closed and hierarchical structures.

A key metaphor is the “eye-level” — understood as an ethical principle of equality and the possibility of genuine encounter. When this level is absent, hierarchies and dependencies intensify, and personal truth is replaced by the need for external validation.

Within the festival, the project is realized as both a performance and a spatial installation, engaging in dialogue with the urban environment of Ruse and the gallery space through video and documentation. The project includes an action staged from the Naval Tower, with the audience positioned below, as well as an audiovisual layer featuring projection and music by Ana Bo.