Bulgarian Pavilion at 2026 Venice Biennale Features Four Artists with Video Works and Collaborative Videogame

The Bulgarian Pavilion at the 61st Venice Biennale, located in the Centro Culturale Don Orione Artigianelli, presents four artists: Gery Georgieva, Maria Nalbantova, Rayna Teneva, and Veneta Androva. Each artist shows an individual video work alongside a collaboratively created interactive videogame. Androva's film 'Spray and Pray' (2026) examines digital media infrastructures and belief. Nalbantova's 'Marsh Song' (2026) focuses on the Dragoman Marsh in Bulgaria, exploring wetlands as ecosystems and imagined spaces. Georgieva's 'UWU Channel Radiance' (2020) features a prophetic newsreader blending mythology, folklore, and algorithmic logic. Teneva's 'Geography Is Destiny' (2026) is a hybrid documentary about her return to a region where arms industry and rose oil production coexist. The artists discuss their work in relation to the Biennale theme 'In Minor Keys', emphasizing attentiveness to forces below spectacle. They reflect on the role of national pavilions amid rising nationalisms, seeing them as spaces for exposing tensions and complexities rather than unified identities. The pavilion functions like a radar system, sensitive to subtle gestures and signals. The Biennale runs from 9 May to 22 November 2026.