Ina Damyanova – Bulgaria – Land art
Ina Damyanova was born in Sofia, Bulgaria. In 1991 she graduated “ССХУ за Приложни изкуства”(National Art School) in Sofia – design.
She works in the field of new forms of visual art, sculpture, ceramics, interior and product design. She uses different materials and means of expression to achieve an individualised end result.
Her works are part of the private collection of the famous Belgian collector Hugo Vouten, as well as in a number of private collections in Bulgaria, Spain, France and Austria.
2007, she was awarded with a scholarship from Unesco Auschberg, Spain, resident of Alkala de Hugar
2010, takes part in Cite des Art’s, Paris
She has a number of solo exhibitions and group shows.
THE ROAD as a Ritual
Labyrinth
Statement:
The road for me is the most personal experience in our lives. No matter if we realize it or not, it is the only thing which depends entirely on us, regardless of how many people do we share it with. Our road equals ourselves. It is a symbol of our presence and our movement through life, it is a picture of the life that we create. It carries the mysticism of time, the human knowledge, human succession and personal experience. Every single movement or thought of ours is “the road”. It is the infinity itself representing the beginning and the end. We self-determine ourselves though the road that we have chosen, the way we follow it and our personal growth along the way.
The ritual, on the other hand, could be each of our activities done in a conscious manner using the power of thought. It is tightly connected with life and with the Bulgarian cultural tradition.
I find myself in a stage in which I’m searching for that space of inner peace which is positioned only within me but I’m doing that without leaving the world around me. It’s just the opposite – I am trying to find this point by opening up for the world, by accepting it and by sharing it with the others.
My idea for visualization of this process reacted in the creation of a personal Labyrinth through which I materialize the trajectory of my own movement which starts from its center and also ends there. The Labyrinth represents a ritual space for self-knowledge, a place to meet with your own persona and also a game which involves the constant movement and the constantly changing perspective of life’s energy.
I decided to use the thread quite literally, as a symbol of time. Each of us knits the thread of his own life, following his own thoughts while moving through his own life path.
An important aspect of my work is the intersection of my own trajectory with the ones of the other participants and the common sharing of this experience. The crossing through the personal space of the other is an intimate and very personal act – what would be our points of contact, how much time would we choose to spend together? It is crucial that this work accepts continuity, it could be further developed and dynamically changed in time by the new people who would participate.
The entering point and the exit point of the Labyrinth mirror life itself, as two points within eternity. When we enter and exit we won’t find wrong trajectories or thoughts. This is the time when we move through ourselves and we touch the others, this is the time when we try to reach „the goal“ in the search of our completeness and the following return into life itself.
The road is a spiritual jurney towards myself which I would like to share with the others.
