Opening on Thursday, 10 September 2026, at 6 p.m.
Maya Antova – Mayoto has transformed the exhibition space into a metaphorical Macondo, the town of solitude and magical realism in Gabriel García Márquez’s masterpiece. The exhibition is dedicated to the centenary of the birth of Ivanka Sokerova, a ‘forgotten’ and lesser-known artist whose life was a fascinating fiction.
Sokerova was an example of the triumph of the spirit: as a child, she manifested her versatile talent, but her life changed after her right hand was complete paralysed due to illness. Thus, fate directed her to devote herself to art. Her life turned into a microcosm of solitude where the borderline between reality and fantasy became invisible.
The exhibition, titled MACONDO, is here to show that solitude is not stagnation but a state of mind where art becomes the only possible language. By inverting the exhibition space, Maya Antova – Mayoto urges the viewer to look at the ‘invisible’, and to rethink Ivanka Sokerova’s persona as the architect of a magical world built on the ruins of a paralysed reality.
The exhibition, arranged in a radically different way, resembles a kind of ‘topsy-turvy world’. All objects are positioned ‘beneath the ceiling’, some reaching the floor, others hanging in the air. To observe them, the viewer must look up—a gesture of rising above earthly suffering and searching for the transcendent; a kind of gravity of the spirit.
An illusion of fiction is achieved through 3D objects replicating sculptures by Sokerova. The ‘thread-hand’ detail (a symbol of matter with no structure) serves as the leitmotif of the exhibition.
At the centre of the installation, there is an inflatable boat roaming beneath the ceiling—a symbol of transition and escape from reality. Life jackets made of paper with prints of memories are ‘floating’ around it. Paper here represents the fragile raft of knowledge that keeps the personality afloat—a reference to all intellectual activities, translations, drawings, sculptures, collages and participation in Dadaist actions, all part of Sokerova’s artistic life.
When viewers look up at the boat and the paper jackets, they do not see a ‘sinking’, but ‘rising’. They understand that escaping from reality is not desertion but an act of supreme intellectual courage.
Ivanka Sokerova did not simply translate books or model clay—she constructed life jackets from thought so as not to sink into the loneliness of her Macondo. Today, these vests hang over us as a call to seek our own haven while the world around turns topsy-turvy.
The exhibition opens with an authorial performance by Maya Antova – Mayoto, titled ‘Traveling Back’, where quotes from literary texts dedicated to Sokerova intertwine with random noises and onomatopoeic elements, creating the feeling of the fragmented world of Macondo.
…
Maya Antova – Mayoto, an interdisciplinary artist and lecturer at the Department of Visual Arts at St Kliment Ohridski Sofia University, works in the fields of artistic performance, installation and computer-generated images. Over the years, she has taken part in numerous exhibitions in Bulgaria and abroad. Actively involved in developing the independent cultural scene as co-chair of the Art in Action Association, she is also founder of the Centre for Learning Through Experience and a member of Section 13 of the Union of Bulgarian Artists.
The interaction between human nature, virtual space and technological progress is at the core of her long-term research. It is through this lens that she conceptually plays with the various layers of existence and the subtle accumulations on our biological and spiritual body. Her creative pursuits focus on the impact of digital tools on the collective consciousness and moral psyche of societies, posing fundamental questions about the transformations in the understanding and practical application of personal freedom in the modern world.
Media partners: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency; ELLE, and rozali.com
