Facebook event
Impact Factors:
If Shooting Matters
International photo and video exhibition
June 10th – August 20th 2025
Curators:
Raul Zamudio (US)
Ivaylo Hristov (BG)
Artists:
Mihail Novakov (BG)
Sasha Kurmaz (UA)
Siyana Shishkova (BG)
Svilen Nachev (BG)
HOSTGALLERY presents a very special international exhibition dedicated to contemporary photography and video art with a provocative question – does the act of photographing still matter in an era of total digital transformation?
In their joint curatorial selection, Raul Zamudio (US) and Ivaylo Hristov (BG) present photographs by the well-known Mihail Novakov (BG) and Svilen Nachev (BG), as well as photo and video works by Sasha Kurmaz (UA) and Siyana Shishkova (BG).
American curator Raul Zamudio defines the exhibition as ” The Incisive Moment in Four Acts” and finds the artists’ reference to Henri Cartier-Bresson’s remarkable photography book The Decisive Moment (1952) quite intriguing – the moment of “capturing life’s “decisive moment” in all its quotidian splendor.”
Regarding the participants’ works, Zamudio shares that “they are constantly expanding its aesthetic and conceptual purview, and thus will always distinguish themselves and remain perpetually, and incisively…of the moment”.
The exhibition “Impact Factors: If Shooting Matters” (whose title also alludes to the key “impact factor” in media “IF”) focuses on the idea of photography not merely as a passive chronicler and documentation medium, but as an active tool for generating authentic content within a series of possible realities, as Ivaylo Hristov shares and adds: “We know that each of these moments of co-experiencing carries meaning only when we recognize it as significant and pause to take a closer look.”
What moments of unique visual stories have the four artists captured, what additional insights have they shared about their work, and how does the American curator view their creativity – we can discover and immerse ourselves in their worlds through the exhibition at HOSTGALLERY starting June 10th.
We share in advance a few words from the artists in advance.
Svilen Nachev (1979), a photographer with a memorable style and distinguished by numerous prestigious awards, reveals: “Photography is torn between fact and fiction, reality and interpretation, truth and illusion” – a description that unlocks insight into the series of works titled “Between 0 and 1.”
Mihail Novakov (1984) hardly needs a special introduction, and there are probably few who haven’t encountered his photographs. He brings an element of surprise to the current exhibition. Unlike other situations featuring colorful urban characters, here Novakov chooses to focus on cold silence and shares about his series “The Frozen Lake”: “The three frames explore different aspects of silence, tranquility, and the delicate boundary between life and stillness.”
Sasha Kurmaz (1986) is an internationally represented artist based in Kyiv, with a rich artistic biography and numerous international awards. In the exhibition “Impact Factors: If Shooting Matters,” he presents a series of figures in almost frozen poses, provoked by urban scenes:
“Through unusual, often uncomfortable poses… these interventions articulate the tension between individual embodiment and collective flow, actualizing the problems of presence and absence…”
Siyana Shishkova (2000) is among the youngest Bulgarian artists, who has a very interesting sensibility for black-and-white visual stories. About her participation, she shares: “The images often combine fragments from different scenes – cropped, blurred, or expanded – forming unusual new landscapes shaped by chance and synchronicity.”
About the photographers, Raul Zamudio summarizes: “The artists participating in ‘Impact Factors: IF Shooting Matters’ are diverse in theme and individual style, but are best understood through their own collective formulation: ‘Photography remains a universal tool not only for capturing, but also for creating powerful emotional states, with unvarnished realism, and at the same time manages to keep us in a sufficiently safe place, from where we calmly, even often carelessly and indifferently, observe living life – fragile, unstable and transient.’
The international exhibition “Impact Factors: If Shooting Matters” opens on June 10th from 6:00 PM to 9:30 PM at Sofia’s contemporary art gallery HOSTGALLERY and continues until August 20th this year.
* The project was realized with the financial support of the National Culture Fund of Bulgaria.