Workshop for children, teens, and families with Nevena Ekimova and Nevelin Ivanov
PLAYGROUND DAY
As part of CULTURAMA ’26, #playground will be more than just a place to play. It will become a symbol of our freedom to think, create, and discover together. We invite you to bring wasted or forgotten textiles from your home, as well as small objects. With the help of the artists Nevena Ekimova and Nevelin Ivanov, these items will be transformed into a collective installation using various artistic techniques during our Playground Day. The process of transformation is at the heart of the project: the materials and objects are given new life, and the children gain the confidence that they can create meaning and make new form from what seems abandoned!
The PLAYGROUND DAY initiative is designed as an interactive, multidisciplinary project for children, teenagers, and families as part of the festival. The playground here is more than just a place to play—it is a symbol of the freedom to think, create, and discover together.We invite families to bring unwanted or forgotten textiles from their homes, as well as small objects. Over the course of a day, these will be transformed into a collective installation using various artistic techniques. The process of transformation is at the heart of the project: materials and objects are given new life, and children gain the confidence that they can create meaning and form from what appears to be discarded.
Through this creative process, participants learn to work together, ask questions, and seek new solutions. Art serves as a bridge between play and knowledge, between personal experience and shared community. It does not merely reflect the world, but reinterprets it and opens up space for dialogue and inclusion.
“At the core of art lies play, and the playground (or, in my case, the unnamed space behind the apartment block) is the first field of expression for the future artist. One of my favorite games was to transform muddy puddles together with other children into oases—with palm trees made of grass, dams built from pebbles, and paper boats. In this type of collective play (another example being sandcastles), one rule applies: the more children take part in the shared act of creation, the more impressive the result.As an adult, I often feel drawn to invite the audience into my work—perhaps in search of that same sense of free collectivity. I encourage a shared act of creation that allows for individual expression, yet is nourished and thrives in the presence of others.My work for this year’s edition of KultuRama is open to people of all ages and allows for free expression within the ancient tradition of weaving. Visitors have the opportunity to take part in creating yarn from used knitwear, including their own old garments, as well as to weave directly into the work throughout the day—contributing their labor and imagination to the collective whole.”
Nevena Ekimova is a Bulgarian artist, based in her hometown of Gabrovo. She studied contemporary art in Norway and Iceland, and got her BFA at the Valand Art Academy in Gothenburg, Sweden. Besides participating in exhibitions, she often works with public institutions and creates large-scale interactive projects for children and adults. Nevena's works are often both visual and tactile, have a poetic and/or performative element and invite active audience participation. Nevena is the creator of the Mirror Hall and the Kids’ Hall Garden Town at the Museum of Humor and Satire in Gabrovo.
“The work places art education at its center as a process of gathering, listening, and transforming individual ideas into a shared form. Within the project, children write their thoughts on sticky notes, and I stitch them together with a sewing machine, turning them into a garland of fragments, voices, and images. This sequence of small gestures echoes the way artistic knowledge is built—through practice, repetition, attention to detail, and engagement with material. In this way, individual imagination becomes a shared image, and the educational process itself transforms into a visible, living artistic form composed of many parts.”
Nevelin Ivanov (b. 2002, Burgas) is a visual artist with a background in Fashion Design from the National Academy of Arts and a Master’s degree in Cultural Studies. His work operates at the intersection of drawing, conceptual fashion, and performance.He has participated in the School4Artists 3 platform at the Institute of Contemporary Art – Sofia and was nominated for the Baza Award in 2024 and 2025. His solo exhibitions include “If I Had a Pig, I Would Name It Nevo”, “Nevo’s Bedroom”, and “You Will Not See”.He has also taken part in several group exhibitions and fashion performances, including “Toy-Cry” at ICA Gallery, Sofia (2023), as well as Defy The Status Quo at Æther Haga, The Hague, Netherlands, and DOZA, Sofia (2023).
