Personal statement
As a historian of photography, I am inclined to question any notion of photography as a stable medium. My work explores its complexity through historical cross-references—for example, by combining digital projection with the wet plate collodion process, or by reintroducing common optical imperfections from the 16th and 17th centuries, such as astigmatism and comatic aberration, into contemporary digital photography.
I investigate the concept of photographic transparency through the use of self-modified lenses, and I challenge the conventional idea of the frame through diverse exposure techniques. In my experiments with camera design, optical phenomena, and chemical processes, I encounter both the delicacy of the photographic medium and the freedom inherent in its vast range of possibilities.
Through these modifications of photographic instruments, I focus on the rich yet understudied artistic potential of photography to transform reality into diverse expressions of light, creating visual meditations on the essence of light itself.
Short biographical note
Lilyana Karadjova is a Bulgarian photographer, art historian, and philosopher. She is an Assistant Professor of Photography at New Bulgarian University and a lecturer at the National Academy of Art in Sofia, where she teaches courses on the theory and history of photography, photography and art, and photography in graphic design.
She has conducted numerous workshops on alternative photographic processes and, since 2015, has constructed hundreds of cameras together with her students. She has also worked as a visiting lecturer at the Naples Academy of Fine Arts, the Brera Academy in Milan, Abat Oliba CEU University in Barcelona, and the University of Notre Dame du Lac.
In the field of criticism, Lilyana Karadjova worked as an art columnist for the national daily Novinar (2008–2016) and has frequently contributed to publications such as L'Europeo, Art and Critique, Kultura newspaper, and the Bulletin of UBA.
Selected exhibitions:
05.12.2024 - 31.04.2025 - The Near Distance, personal exhibtion, curated by Vincenzo Circosta and Giuseppe Giari, "Libreria Brunelleschi", Museo dell'Opera del Duomo, Florence, Italy
01.11.2023 - 14.01.2024 - Personal Reality, group exhibition, Sofia Arsenal - Museum of Contemporary Art, National Gallery, Bulgaria
23.03 - 14.04.2023, Metamorphosis of the Horizon, personal exhibition, curated by: Massimo Scaringella, KOU Gallery, Rome, Italy
22.10 - 26.11.2022 - Invisible Streets, personal exhibition in collaboration with Dimitar Stoyanovich, Sofia City Art Gallery, Sofia, Bulgaria
12.05 - 28.06.2022 - Life as an Experiment, Photography as Life, group exhibition, curated by: Katerina Gadjeva, Sofia Arsenal - Museum of Contemporary Art, National Gallery, Bulgaria
2022 - Camera Obscura, curatorial project, group exhibition with students of photography in New Bulgarian University, Bookstore-Gallery "NBU in the Center", Sofia, Bulgaria
2021 - Light Masks, personal exhibition, National Autumn Exhibitions 2021, Plovdiv, Bulgaria
2021 - Small Crimes, personal exhibition, National Autumn Exhibitions 2021, Plovdiv, Bulgaria
2021 - "Horizon of Events", group exhibition, One Gallery, Sofia, Bulgaria
four prints of the series "Horizon of Events"
2020 - "Alternative Photography in Bulgaria", curatorial project, group exhibition
part of "Tree of Life, Genealogies of Bulgarian Contemporary Art", One Gallery, Sofia, Bulgaria
2020 - "Homage to Masters of Photography", curatorial project, collective exhibition of students of New Bulgarian University, Serdica Gallery, Sofia, Bulgaria
2018 - 2020 - "Film's Not Dead", collective project with BA "Photography" of NBU, The Red House Centre for Culture and Debate, Sofia, Bulgaria
2019 -"Street Ivats Voyvoda" - Curatorial project, Museum House Andrey Nikolov, National Gallery, Sofia, Bulgaria
2019 - "The Game", collective exhibition, Gallery LoosenArt, Rome. Italy
2019 - "The Border of the Photographic", curatorial project, collective exhibition, Gallery Academy, National Academy of Arts, Sofia, Bulgaria
2019 - "Urban Lights", collective exhibition, Gallery LoosenArt, Rome, Italy
2019 - "Bulgarian Participation, collective exhibition, La Biennale di Roma",
LuxArt, Rom, Italy
2018/2019 - "Freedom Here - and - Now" - Exhibition by Lilyana Karadjova and Dimitar Stoyanovich, Sofia Arsenal - Museum for Contemporary Art, National Gallery, Bulgaria
2018 - "Photographic Original and Art Practices", curatorial project, collective exhibition,MA "Photography", NAA, The Red House Centre for Culture and Debate, Sofia, Bulgaria
2018 - Collective exhibition "Light and Time", Art Alley Gallery, Sofia, Bulgaria
2017 - Collective exhibition "Photographic Original and Art Practices", 2017, MA "Photography", NAA, The Red House Centre for Culture and Debate, Sofia, Bulgaria
2016 - “Frame Capsules”, Monev Gallery, Sofia, Bulgaria
2015 - Black spots / Light thoughts, solo exhibition in a group project, the fridge gallery, Sofia, Bulgaria
2014 - International Triennial of Graphic Arts, Sofia, Bulgaria. Collective exhibition. Single work, selection.”Deep Sea Secrets”, cyanotype print
2013 - Photography in NAA, Museum of Contemporary Art, Sofia, Bulgaria
2013 - Jeux de la Francophonie, Collective exhibition, Acropolis, Nice, France
2012 - “Camera Obscura”, Universitad de Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain
2012 - “New Wave Photography”, The Crypt Gallery, London, UK
2012 - “New Wave Photography”, Pawilon Wyspianskiego Gallery, Krakow, Poland
2011 - Dream Machine, solo exhibition, International Meetings of Photography, Balabanov House, Plovdiv, Bulgaria
2011 - “Video mapping”, DA Fest, video, National Academy of Arts, Sofia, Bulgaria
2011 - “Smooth Art”, Grosse Pointe Art Center, Detroit, USA
2011 - “Photo of the year - Canon”, National Art Gallery, Sofia, Bulgaria
2010 - Postidentity, solo exhibition, The Academy Gallery, National Academy of Arts, Sofia, Bulgaria