Vesselina Nikolaeva

In my life, I have crossed countless borders between cultures and ideologies, countries and continents. I had always been familiar with the terms East and West but I could never quite position neither the geographical nor the psychological barrier between them. I had never walked on the border between any two sovereign lands, let alone political unions. I thought that if I set foot on no man’s land, I would understand the meaning of the barbed wire on either side of the thin line that is not impregnated with politics, but its only purpose is to be a blank spot on map of the world.In different political environments and times, borders embody different meanings. It was difficult to define time in no man’s land. It was out of history; the past was the future. It was a different world, perhaps even a different country, populated with soldiers, who guarded laws and regulations only they understood. It was a male-oriented micro-society living with myths of heroic battles and victories. “Simply a Line” is my journey to the unspoken past of Bulgaria and a story of an empty strip of land that ones was the external border of the Warsaw Pact and now is the new outer limit of the European Union.

Vesselina Nikolaeva (1976, Sofia) majors in Photography at the Art Academy of Utrecht (the Netherlands) in 2001. In 2005 she receives The Award for Young Photographer (in the framework of ‘De Zilveren Camera 2004 the Netherlands) followed by the Grand Prix of the 4th International Festival of Photography 2005 in Poland and the ‘Descubrimientos’ at Photoespana 2005 in Spain. Her work has been exhibited in numerous galleries and museums in Bulgaria and The Netherlands and has been a part of many international festivals in Germany, Spain, France,Poland, , Slovakia, Portugal, Greece, Belgium, Finland, Australia and the USA. Vesselina Nikolaeva has four individual publications; Baba (2004) , School nr.7 (2006) , Simply a Line (2009) and I’m od I’m Great I’m Wonderful (2013)