This is not merely an exhibition—it is a visual elegy, composed of images captured at the threshold between the visible and the invisible, between the fleeting and the eternal. “Until the Light Devours Us” presents photographs taken between 2013 and 2024 in Bulgaria and Norway—two distinct geographies that merge through light, silence, and the atmospheric emotionality that permeates every image.
At the heart of the exhibition is not just what is shown, but how it is made. All works are original prints created using the rare and meticulous 19th-century analog technique of wet collodion. This process, demanding patience, precision, and meditative attention, yields photographs of striking material presence—each one a singular event, born through a fog of ether, silver, and light. The resulting portraits possess a sculptural density and an almost fragile vulnerability, capturing not merely appearances, but states of being.
These images do not simply look at you—they contemplate you. They do not narrate stories in words, but through silence, presence, and the carefully suspended moment that reverberates beyond the visible. They remain still, yet something within them pulses—like the echo of a thought, or a breath held in the dark.
The title of the exhibition—“Until the Light Devours Us”—is drawn from Hvis lyset tar oss (“If the Light Takes Us”), the third album by the Norwegian black metal project Burzum. This reference is far from incidental: the monochrome aesthetic, the somber lyricism, and the introspective philosophy of the album resonate powerfully in Vlaskovska’s work. Her photographs evoke a similar sense of light as threshold, as passage—a medium through which to approach the essence of things, even as it dissolves before our eyes.
In this context, each photograph becomes a visual memento mori—a quiet reminder of the transience of existence, but also of our desire to leave a trace of light behind. To be seen. To be remembered. To exist beyond time.
“Until the Light Devours Us” is realized with the support of the National Culture Fund of Bulgaria under the “Distribution” program (2024) and is part of a traveling exhibition that will be presented in other cities across the country.
