Archive | Digital Research
Virtual exhibition Food: Images of Time — Bulgarian art on the theme of food and digital exploration of cultural memory
ARCHIVED

Food: Images of Time (2025)

Archived digital project, originally shown from 17 November 2025 to 28 February 2026

Status: Archived
Curated by: Art Stylus
Location: Virtual Exhibition (Kunstmatrix)
Archive Location: Art Stylus Archives

Overview

Art Stylus presents a virtual research project entitled Food: Images of Time. The project takes as its point of departure the exhibition Food: Subsistence, Communication, Ritual, presented at the Sofia City Art Gallery in 2021. It uses publicly available media images. Revisiting one of the vital themes of life – food as a sign of time, shared experience, and ritual - the online presentation engages with selected works from this exhibition, drawing on publicly available media images. The artworks are arranged in a loose chronological sequence in order to form a visual corpus for digital research.

The aim of the project is to analyze how the digital environment affects artworks, creates new forms of access and functions as a tool for cultural memory.

Gallery Views

Selected gallery views from the original virtual exhibition are preserved as a visual record of Food: Images of Time — illustrating both the atmosphere of the show and the evolution of our digital curatorial environment. Made with Kunstmatrix.

◼ Curatorial Documentation

Context and Concept towards the digital exhibition
“Food: Images of Time”
Tanya Mitkova · February 2026
PDF · 6 pages · English
▼ [ Download PDF ]

Selected Images

Still life with red peppers and bread, oil painting, 1937
Still Life (1937). Artist: Patriki Sandev.
Still life with oranges on a plate, a ceramic vase and a white tablecloth, oil painting, 1955
Still Life with Oranges (1955). Artist: Nicola Georgiev.
Five men resting on a grassy field, eating during a lunch break, oil painting, 1960
Lunch Break (1960). Artist: Asen Vassilev.

Source Materials

  • BNT Culture.BG. Interview with Svetla Georgieva, curator of the exhibition. Aired on 22.06.2021. [link]
  • Dnevnik Daily. Food: Subsistence, Communication, Ritual. Preview. Published on 17.06.2021. [link]
  • Sofia City Art Gallery. Exhibition catalogue. Published in 2021. ISBN 978-619-7195-28-6
  • Sofia City Art Gallery. Official exhibition page. [link]
  • Vesti.bg. Online gallery Food: Subsistence, Communication, Ritual. Published on 05.07.2021. [link]
    Note: Publicly accessible media source serving as a visual reference corpus for the purposes of the research project.

List of Works Included

A corpus of 16 works were included during the period of the digital exhibition.
▼ [ Download PDF ]

Archive Credits:
(Selected works on display in web page)
1. Still Life (1937). Artist: Patriki Sandev. Owner: Art Gallery Kazanlak. Photographer Georgi Dimitrov, Vesti.bg.
2. Still Life with Oranges (1955). Artist: Nicola Georgiev. Owner: Sofia City Art Gallery. Photographer Georgi Dimitrov, Vesti.bg.
3. Lunch Break (1960). Artist: Asen Vassilev. Owner: Kyustendil Art Gallery. Photographer Georgi Dimitrov, Vesti.bg.

Notes for Further Research

During the research, a group of works composed of ephemeral materials (chocolate, eggshells, water) was identified, in which material transience constitutes an integral aspect of the artistic concept. In an archival context, such objects persist only through their visual documentation, underscoring the importance of metadata for their identification, description, and long-term traceability.