We meet Veselina Sarieva - curator of the DOT Sofia Art Collection and founder of the Sarieva Gallery - to talk about the relationship between art and space, about valuable encounters and like-minded people who are changing the environment.  

Hi Vessie! 

Six months after the opening of DOT Sofia, is it just the tin that is rusting?  

Actually, the sheet metal (or so-called Corten) is made to rust to a certain point and then create an illusion of the process, or in other words, it stops where it is spectacular without getting to real corrosion. The patina conveys a sense of life, of living, of time gone by, of nostalgia and a different way of looking at things. Realistically, both the building and we have waited a long time for it to open. So maybe the moment the sheet metal stopped "rusting" was the moment it all began.

DOT Sofia is an aparthotel that meets the good life in an unusual way - accommodation and relaxation, food and art. How did this combination come about? 

 At DOT Sofia you get accommodation, food, architecture and art all at the same time. The feeling of the space is part of the character of everyone who works here, from the girls who clean to the people who install the art. As far as the connection between an aparthotel and art is concerned, for me it is about laying the moral foundations - hence Panco Georgiev's' in building a collection of the best of Bulgarian contemporary art. If you look online to see who the best contemporary Bulgarian artists are, you are likely to see their works in DOT Sofia - Nedko Solakov, Pravdolyub Ivanov, Stefan Nikolaev, Lachezar Boyadzhiev and many others. Here you can see works that cannot be found in any other public building in Bulgaria. The connection with art is not coincidental. The fact that Pancho Georgiev managed to get me and the gallery involved in his project in a sincere and committed way speaks volumes about the importance of what is happening. 

Cold Bird, Stefan Nikolaev / photo: Sarieva Gallery 

What is the conversation between the multi-genre Women's Market and DOT Sofia?

On the one hand, DOT Sofia is something very modern, made-to-measure, and on the other hand, it is completely in sync with the aesthetics of the Women's Market - especially the fact that the building of DOT Sofia is not high and fits harmoniously into the whole ambience with its rusty tin roof tiles. DOT Sofia is a space for the daring, looking for people who are curious and willing to ask questions. Everything here is provocative, from the art in the toilets to the texts and even the gallows at the entrance. In a way, the rusty façade we talked about is a wink and a nudge to all this.

How would you define your role in the development of DOT Sofia? 

The mission of Sarieva Gallery and DOT Sofia is to create long-term development environments - probably too long a strategy for a human life, but even small results are satisfying. As I said, our goal is to say "this is who we are and we want there to be more like us". We want there to be more people to share with. My role is to connect DOT Sofia with people I have met - people with good intentions and a philanthropic desire to support contemporary Bulgarian art. Since these people are few and far between, and many of them don't want to be publicised, I'm trying to create a community of people who don't want to see their name in an article, but who are willing to do something to improve the climate. It's a dialogue, a collaboration that would be very difficult to put into a standard format. 

At the level of the eyes, Pravdoliub Ivanov / photo: Sarieva Gallery  

In a modernist aparthotel we find a representative collection, presented according to the gallery principle...

DOT Sofia Art Collection is a private collection of contemporary Bulgarian art. The selection is inspired by humour, the melancholic depth of the Bulgarian soul, everyday themes in Bulgaria and around the world, and our lives as urban nomads. The works explore the possibility of empathy and the joy of contemporary existence in a world of social, ethical, political and ethnic amplitudes and contrasts. We are talking about a place of constant transformation, which in a way is the DOT Sofia apart-hotel and its permanent collection itself - they are exclusively related to the perspectives of dialogue and shared space. Very often we have artworks like a camera with a scarf on it - it's called "Only my grandmother can judge me" (hyperlink). And that's from the grandmothers at the village meetings who sit there and just chirp and explain what's going on and what's not. We also see Balkan folk psychology - surveillance as a camera. Right next to it is a brass and neon work by Stefan Nikolaev (hyperlink), which again is expensive and powerful, and has nothing to do with the camera, but again works with Bulgarian tradition and superstition - it is a horseshoe that is put up to be collected, and with the author's inherent sense of humour is turned down. In this sense, most of the works have a story behind them.   
 

For the first DOT Sofia exhibition we wore helmets - what are the key moments from then to now? 

With "Future Unforgettable" exhibition, we wanted to see the history of Bulgarian contemporary art through collecting. Since I had planned to be at DOT Sofia, but the space hadn't opened yet, to the dismay of all the masters, I suggested that we hold the exhibition here for a month. It turned out that what we could do at that time was to present the exhibition as a promotional event within two days. 

So we managed to welcome 360 people in 4 hours, we did a very interesting promotion - nobody knew that DOT Sofia was going to open. It was an important marketing move that made the building extremely popular. I couldn't wait to get started, and that's why I decided to call the exhibition Under Deconstruction - because we were working all the time, but someone always came and It spoiled what was done and we had to fix it :)) In the exhibition there was a piece by Stefan Nikolaev, which is a construction helmet - we made a lot of helmets for the event and gave them to people. Everyone who came left with one. We presented works from the collections of Boyana Sokolova and Niki Nedelchev. It was a very interesting and funny exhibition! Naturally, we decided to continue with Stefan Nikolaev. In general, our policy is to work with people for a long time - we don't jump from one artist to another to create variety :))

 
  Under Deconstruction, Stefan Nikolaev  /  photo: Sarieva Gallery    

Tell us, is there anything in common between the artists exhibited at DOT Sofia? 

 If we analyse Bulgarian contemporary art Open Art Files , we conclude that Bulgarian humor and irony, often expressed as "yes, but no," are central themes. Many exhibited works reflect this. Pancho Georgiev's personal collection is, to a large extent, a nostalgic gesture towards his return to Bulgaria, reflecting his Bulgarian roots after spending much of his life abroad. This genuine love for Bulgaria is evident in the artists who work with a similar aesthetic, deeply rooted in Bulgarian reality. For instance, Nedko Solakov's typical drawings exemplify this humor. One of his works, "Black and White," features a painter who paints everything black, followed by another who paints everything white, illustrating the cyclical and ironic nature of life in the Balkans.

Walking around with a glass of wine and having a work by an established contemporary artist appear before your eyes - there is something adventurous about the experience. What does this form of communication bring us? 

Art creates a connection with the visitor as soon as he enters DOT Sofia. The first thing they see is a work by Lachezar Boyadjiev, part of a series called Utopian Cities. After creating paintings for Paris, Venice, Kassel and many other world-famous cities, we invited Lacho to create a work for Sofia. And what are Sofia's dreams - real and imaginary? To climb Vitosha, to have a big river, to have more spirit and mood... on the top of the mountain we see a painted Ferris wheel. When you walk through the women's market and enter this amazing architectural building, you see a drawing! They don't have the typical hotel canvas, reception desk, clock... Seeing "What does Sofia dream of?", the visitor starts asking questions, but also looking for answers. All this happens with ease, unobtrusively. You see that there is an intervention and that something interesting is happening - like the trolley in the lobby, which is full of water, but at the same time something is being built. This is, of course, the Bulgarian Black Sea coast :))

When you go to the dashboard to press the lift button, you find that there are all sorts of little scratchy people around it saying funny things to you. Then you read the label and realise that it's a work of art by Nedko Solakov. There is art on display in the hall on the second floor of the aparthotel, and by the time you get to your room you have already learned a lot, you have immersed yourself in an unusual world... Here you create a community, you come to meet other people like yourself.

What's next artistically for DOT Sofia in 2024? 

Three times a year DOT Sofia hosts the exhibitions of the Sarieva Gallery, which is active both locally and internationally. One of the exhibitions is of a young artist from the DOT Sofia Art Collection - Desislava Terzieva. We have a special DOT Sofia project coming up in September. We are working on a squatshop that will showcase Bulgarian design and interesting objects. At the same time we are working on archiving and presenting the DOT Sofia collection on the Aparthotel website. Of course, we are also developing individual events with our clients... We are also creating a library - in each of the rooms there will be selected books in Bulgarian. A programme for a cultural institution, not for an aparthotel :))

DOT Sofia is located in close proximity to the Women's Market - the heart of Old Sofia, the historic center of the city, which for centuries was home to trade and markets. The building welcomes with a unique facade created entirely from corten-steel, which makes it an indispensable part of the atmosphere of the multi-genre district. The space is an intersection of a boutique aparthotel of 10 designer apartments, a penthouse with 360-degree views and a private roof terrace, Sofia's best new restaurant for 2023 - KOMAT, and a prestigious collection of contemporary Bulgarian art. DOT Sofia becomes part of the environment with the intention of developing both its identity and its capabilities.