Varna, 2024 Performance
GALAXY Stalker Fandom, Varna, Bulgaria

Original performance 18:25
Video excerpt 1:09

Varna is a ritual that incorporates its setting—like nearby roses and rugged cobblestones—to create a tactile and sensual experience. Expressive movements evoke an invisible resistance or psychological tension, as chairs are crashed together or softly caressed. These movements and poetic materials sanctify the courtyard they reside in, heightening an onlooker’s emotional response. Though it begins isolated in a bowl, the tangy aroma and vibrant yellow of turmeric threads through the performance, until onlookers are invited in and experience the evocative physical movements and texture of turmeric for themselves. 

Varna was performed as part of a collective effort from Feministas Futuristicas during the Buna Varna: Nature of Relations Festival, located at the GALAXY Stalker Fandom. Feministas Futuristicas is a series of events and artistic exchanges among international women artists, whose practices are embedded in feminist emancipatory methodologies. Many of the artists work with embodied content that involves ritual, similar to the structure of Varna. This festival marked the second time Feministas Futuristicas met in person to exchange ideas.