The project 77 ½ began as a study of women’s rites & rituals in Bulgaria, affirming the dignity and power of the female world and energy beyond the conservatism of patriarchal society through a series of photographs, sound and video works, and performance documentation. The exhibition was first presented in 2023 at the Topolocentrala gallery in the capital, and today, in its edition inspired by the spirit of the Valley of Roses, it can be seen in the main building of Art Gallery – Kazanlak.
77 ½ are the herbs that must be gathered for winter, with the last half remaining nameless – a cure for a mysterious, unknown illness. For the artists, this illness is the sadness born from the anxiety and stress of living in today’s world. Whether there is a cure for sadness becomes a question whose answer Iskra Blagoeva and Valentina Sciarra seek in the bodily and spiritual restoration of broken ties with nature and community.
In recent years, the artists have visited various places in the country to learn more about herb gathering, including Kazanlak. Their work is driven by an inner impulse to rethink the threads that connect us to the past and traditions in the present. Their research is a personal journey to the self through the deep roots of ancestral memory and heritage.
The exhibition 77 ½ is the first exhibition co-produced by CCA Topolocentrala by an open call. It is supported by a jury composed of: Katia Anguelova (curator, director of Kunstverein (Milano)), Viktoria Draganova (curator, director of Swimming Pool, Sofia) and Vladiya Mihaylova (curator, head of the Visual Arts department at CCA Topolocentrala). The co-production of artistic projects is an essential part of CCA Topolocentrala’s activities, expressing the Centre’s mission to support active artists and bold authorial ideas, and the desire to develop processes and dialogue in art in contemporary times.
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ROSA MYSTICA
The rose is the favoured symbol of the Madonna, Queen of Heaven and Earth.
It unites the meanings of love, beauty and spirituality with the idea of a path of inner knowledge, a spiritual journey of growth often linked to the “divine feminine.”
By observing this natural “mandala,” formed by petals that expand around the heart of the flower, we perceive the possible beginning of a process of inner awakening and liberation from limiting patterns.
The rose harvest in Bulgaria is often portrayed as an ethereal “ritual” – white dresses, smiling maidens drifting gracefully among the rose bushes.
An aestheticised spectacle, sanitised of reality.
For us, however, this ritual or rather this collective act, follows an aesthetics of meaning: in those moments when the women gather to sing together, to support one another, to voice their exhaustion, to share their pain and draw strength from a collective voice – that is where the true awakening unfolds.
Iskra Blagoeva & Valentina Sciarra
Kazanlak 15.11.2025
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Iskra Blagoeva was born in 1978 in Sofia. She graduated in Fine Arts from the University of Applied Arts, Vienna in 2007. Her artistic work includes paintings, objects and installations. Iskra took part in group shows in Austria, Germany, Italy, Slovenia, Serbia, France and Bulgaria. She is a winner of the National Competition for Young Artists, Critics and Curators of St. Cyril and St. Methodius International Foundation; winner of the competition for young artists at the European Center for Culture and Debate GRAD (Belgrade); BAZA Award and Lingen Art Award nominee.
Valentina Sciarra was born in Rome, Italy in 1983. After completing an LL.M in law and a range of specialist photography courses, Valentina Sciarra received a BA with honours from the Accademia di Belle Arti di Roma (Rome, Italy) in 2013. She currently lives and works in Rome, Italy and in Sofia, Bulgaria where she completed an MA in Sculpture at the National Academy of Arts in 2018.
Valentina received the Gaudenz B. Ruf Award in 2019 and 2018, and was the recipient of a fellowship at Akademie Schloss Solitude, Stuttgart, Germany in 2020, in the context of an Eastern European exchange programme. In 2022, she participated at the 14th European Biennale Manifesta Pristina – Kosovo in the collective exhibition curated by ICA Sofia.
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The team of Art Gallery – Kazanlak extends their heartfelt thanks to the team of The National Military History Museum in Sofia and to the Lyuben Karavelov–1921 Community Centre. We personally thank Associate Professor Sonya Penkova and Polina Stoynova.