DNA - Die Neue Aktionsgalerie . Berlin
MARIANA VASSILEVA / works
Project: reflections
Video: 5:14 min, PAL, 2006
Colour, Format 16:9
Sound: Ambient sound; electronic music by atom heart & eyephone
The place of this light spectacle is the park near Weinbergsweg in the central city quarter of Berlin Mitte. On a summer's day, Mariana Vassileva asked visitors of the park to reflect the sunlight in the camera with mirrors. With those simple means, the artist creates a poetic, mystical light show, which transforms the average everyday in a completely unspectacular manner. For the flashes of light do not only individually meet the lens of the camera, but illuminate the whole of the park. Thus, a rhythmical composition develops from the collaboration of anonymous people and forms a whole with the ambient sounds of the street and the imported music. Through the realisation of a simple idea evolves a fabric of minimal impulses, which, seemingly calculated like a symphony, but still spontaneously, enchant the park.
Mariana Vassileva
 
Project: journal
Video: 12 min, PAL, loop
1990-2005
Mariana Vassileva
I feel, therefore I am. In this regard, the skin acts as the frontier between the individual and our surroundings. Touch confirms our existence. “Through sight, through touch, through sympathy, through work in general we are with the others. All relationships are transitive. I touch an object and I see another person, but I am not that person. I am completely alone” .. extract from the book “The Time and the Other” from Emmanuel Levinas.

In the video "journal" I feel my way past various locations led by a different destination. I am both adult and child at the same time. This is a method not just of feeling, but also transforming the contour of the self. Our skin is a border crossing.

Mariana Vassileva
Project: mirrorlight
Video: 12 min, PAL, loop
2004-2005
With the mirrorlight you can move inside the human buildings. Some buildings have no windows, others are completely made of glass and still others have the shutters closed. Some are solidly built, others are temporary, like tents. I am permanently observing. The outer walls of the buildings which surround me are the inner walls of my home and I am somebody different. One can exchange everything in life except existence. During this existence we isolate ourselves. In this respect we are Monade. During the existence, and not during any kind of content, which could be in you, you are without doors and without windows.

When I blind the people with the mirror they are surprised. Maybe they think I am crazy. In fact many of them laugh, and then I am content.

Mariana Vassileva
Project: jumping man
Video: 2:16 min, PAL, loop
2000-2005
One man in a black suit jumps under his own power. Every jump is an attempt to escape his routine. In doing so, he hopes to redefine himself and his experience. Contemporary society is full of Jumping Men and Jumping Women, who repeat their actions, hoping each time to perform them better. With each summersault they try to reach higher, or at least not fall short of the previous mark. And they hope to make it appear easy, though it is not.
Mariana Vassileva
Project: definition
Video: 2:10min, PAL
2006
The video is immersed in existential yearning for the expanses of time and space. Out of the white landscape of snow comes a pair of bustling feet. The term DEFINITION appears, written is golden fluid in the snow. During this scene one can hear the sound of a cigarette-lighter striking and the ringing of a mobile telephone, with which the protagonist attempts in vain to reach someone...

Throughout the video one can see a beautiful bank of trees, which divide the image horizontally into earth and sky, into here and there, then and now, into the experienced and not yet experienced, perceived space, situation, state of being. As the view pans from left to right one hears a sound like a helicopter slowly separating and raising itself from the land. Then: silence, white screen, wind, the far away sound of birds singing in the wild. As the video ends you hear a dog barking, very close, beside you. Despite this pastoral idyl one still perceives the urban nature of every video sequence - the pathological restlessness.

Mariana Vassileva
Project: the milkmaid
Video: 3 min, PAL, loop
2006
Musik: alva noto - taken from the op.2005 transrapid
Dominique Vellart
Actor - Maria Dabow
This work was inspired by a painting by Jan Vermeer, the "The Milkmaid" from 1658-60. The motif becomes transformed, not only into our present but also into a virtual spaceless and timeless sphere. The clothing and appearance of the young woman are as pristine as the light that plays upon her - as it would an everlasting sculpture. However she is, through her posture, totally in the present. As she remains motionless and only the milk flows - as if frozen in time - one could say that in this work, photography, video and sculpture unite in one medium.
/Ralf Bartholomäus/
Mariana Vassileva
Project: Timecut
Mariana Vassileva
Project: speedformel
2004
model for a sculpture
Mariana Vassileva
Project: Rasender Stillstand
The bus stop modified by Mariana Vassileva was originally a part of her exhibition "Rasender Stillstand" (static motion). At that time the bus stop was senselessly placed in a former schoolyard on Berlin's Auguststraße, causing confusion.This is the effect that the artist hopes for: using something very familiar and perceiving it's features and qualities as if we see it for the first time. For a long time now we have attempted to settle down in big cities but nevertheless we remain on the road.

Perhaps we are still gipsies in spite of our dependence on permanent residences. We never feel truly secure. We try to run away; to flee from ourselves. If something forces us to stop, perhaps to wait for something, we immediately search for things to provide us the comfort we loose through our restlessness.

With her work the artist underlines her interest in contemporary problems, such as the feeling of remaining a stranger even in intimate situations. She is concerned with our longing for a home environment, exploring our forced mobility as well as the pathological restlessness of our time. Her work is occupied with the possibility of discovering a sense of peace and safety even while we are abroad or travelling whilst also exploring the opposite effect of feeling lost in the most common und familiar situations. The placement of the bus stop denies every association with movement: it is certain no bus will stop here. The bus stop has been slightly but significantly manipulated. The seats resemble a bed, implying regained silence and a letter box creates an atmosphere of privacy and confidence. With such little changes a concrete moment - the "now" - is almost within reach.

An isle of peace, completely still, amongst the madness of speed we experience in our present. Those two little changes are enough to slow down an object usually understood as a symbol of mobility. In this variation the bus stop (already regarded as a classical work in Berlin Wall AG´s programme) is perfected. By subtle modifications a common object becomes an art-work enriched with various associations. The simplicity almost painfully contrasts our usual lack of moderation. Being sheer and pure is what makes this work of art so beautiful.
/Ralf Bartholomäus/
Mariana Vassileva
Mariana Vassileva
Mariana Vassileva
Mariana Vassileva