The National Academy of Art is showing an exhibition and installations by Bulgarian and Chinese students near the Sea Station in Burgas, rector Georgi Yankov told Bulgarian National Radio (BNR). The project is run jointly with the China Academy of Art in Beijing.
This report follows our earlier story about the exhibition "Poetry of the Everyday". Yankov said it will open at 6pm at the Atelier gallery of the academy's Burgas branch.
Bulgarian and Chinese students have worked on 9 projects in all. Three installations are finished so far, and they will stand in the area near the Sea Station.
"When the Chinese students arrived, we had ten days and decided we would not have time to make them all, so we started with three installations," Yankov told BNR.
The theme is contemporary public art in the city, outdoors. The rector said the works are made "with new, different materials – glowing, rotating, all kinds of modern forms of public art".
The gallery shows drawings and models, as well as designs, sketches, visualisations and 3D models. The documentary part of the exhibition shows the stages the students went through in designing and building the installations.
Teachers and students from the academy's Burgas branch have started painting the bollards at the Sea Station. A bollard is the metal cylinder that ships are tied to. Yankov said everyone had to come up with something original and imaginative, and the bollards already look like works of art.
The state admission quota for the Burgas branch has been exceeded for the new academic year, the rector said. The branch also offers 2 new master's programmes: "Art Glass and Stained Glass" and "Protection of Underwater Cultural Heritage".
The academy's graphic arts workshop in Burgas is being repaired and renovated, and the work should finish within a month. Afterwards it will house a printing studio and a ceramics studio, with a kiln for firing ceramic sculptures.