In Belief is Power
2023
“As a Bulgarian immigrant in Western Europe, I know how important the local population’s hospitality is to newcomers. So I felt rather indignant when Bulgaria, my home country and that of two million other migrants throughout the world, let nationalist groups expel Muslim refugees, illegally crossing the border between the EU and Turkey.
The articles in Western media on Bulgarian nationalists’ activities raised questions in my mind, which I have explored with this project by trying to discover the Bulgarian border territory and its inhabitants: what triggers a fear of foreigners; what are the local population’s everyday and history; what is Bulgarian identity made of; how does the border region mirror what is happening in Europe; is there a “good” nationalism that could help a country threatened with extinction to preserve itself; and finally, what connects us all as individuals?”
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With the support of the Bulgarian Cultural Institute
Portfolio
About the artist
Bulgarian researcher and visual artist born in 1976, Hristina Tasheva lives in the Netherlands. As an Eastern European living in Western Europe, migration, identity and belonging are core topics of her work. She develops most of her projects as photography books, blending image, text and performance.