ANT •I•CON/CEPT/ION

The show is a mixture of ideas and examples of how people are relating to the recent past of Communism in Bulgaria.
The constant desire to erase the past, rather than transform it, retains as an unhealing wound in the new formed monuments of
consciousness of the newer generations and render this memory as “unlived”, ”dead” in the present.

• An introduction to “ReForget your past”, a project initiated by Nikola Mihov. Nikola Mihov was born in 1982 in Sofia. His first photobook Forget Your Past (2012) was listed among the best photobooks of the year by The British Journal of Photography, reviewed in FOAM magazine and nominated for the Deutsche Börse Photography prize.
Since 2009 he has been investigating the hundreds of monuments in public space in Bulgaria from the communist era, some of which have since been removed. He is now working on a third edition of "Forget your past". A number of remaining copies of the first edition have been edited by artists from Bulgaria and abroad. From this follow-up project, "ReForget your past", some thirty works of art have currently emerged, each with its own vision on this sensitive and underexposed subject from recent history.
www.nikolamihov.com

With contributions by Antonia Tochka, Asen Terziev, Kokimoto, Aleksi Ivanov, Nadezhda Oleg-Lyahova, Vesela Mihaylova, Vitto Valentinov, Martina Atanasov, Martin Kasper, Stanislav Belovski, Kalia Kalcheva, Kremena Nikolova, Greg Loznikow, Nathalie van Doxell as part of Re-Forget your future project

• Patricia Qi – PQI (1987) is an artist exploring (anti)functionality of word and speech in language through writing, installation and performance art from The Netherlands. We met her in Sofia where she, encountering the city, created a textual contribution to Æther’s publication/self-guide to “Becoming the Other”. At the event she will perform some of her recent work.
Patricia Qi studied European Studies (BA - The Hague), and EURUS studies (MA - Tartu) in The Netherlands and Estonia. She currently pursues work as an artist/writer.

• Desislava Pancheva is founder and the thriving force of KONTENTIVE and Hip Hip Library. KONTENTIVE is a creative studio & micro-publisher based in Sofia. It’s an evolving collective of collaborators that designs printed matter, digital products and websites.
Hip Hip library is a library and bookstore devoted to independent publications and self-publishing in the world of art: fanzines, periodical publications, comics, art- and photo books from all over the world. It’s specialized in artist editions and artist books. Desislava also is the initiator of the Sofia Art Book Fair, an annual event since 2016.

• Michaela Lakova (b. 1987 Sofia, Bulgaria) is a Rotterdam based artist and researcher working in the framework of memory and erasure. Her work encompasses video and multimedia installations.
Michaela will show a video work related to the past and future of nuclear energy. Michaela’s works artistically investigate issues relevant to history in a place where the reminiscent of nuclear energy, human activity and memories of the biggest nuclear disaster is still very present (Chernobyl site) and in parallel in the small Danube town Belene where the desire of developing nuclear energy still remains strong and present.
Michala recently had a solo show at Æther Sofia, Past-Present Utopian dream for nu(un)clear future.

• Camera obscura accumulative group portrait
As an opening ritual we’d like to catch Æther Haga’s light with you.

Saturday October 6 opening from 14:00 – 17:00
• Camera obscura accumulative group portrait