Iatrus Residency Program

29/03/2026

OPEN CALL ❗️❗️❗️
Balkan echo is an international programme inviting 10 artists and cultural practitioners from across the Balkan region to take part in a series of residencies in Veliko Tarnovo, Bulgaria throughout 2026.
Rather than a traditional residency, the project functions as a platform for exchange — bringing together artists, curators, designers, writers, and researchers to engage with the local cultural, social, and historical context of the city.

What does the programme include?
– 2 weeks residency in Veliko Tarnovo (June, July or August)
– Artist fee
– Accommodation
– Curatorial and organisational support
– Opportunity to present work at 48 Hours Varusha South Festival (30,000+ audience)
Following the festival, the project will expand through partner presentations in:
– Gabrovo (RAD Lab)
– Kazanlak (City Art Gallery)

Each participant will:
– Present an artist talk
– Open their studio to the public
– Contribute to an evolving digital laboratory (online platform for texts, visuals, and research)

Conceptual Framework
The project explores the idea of neighbourhood as a resource — a way to build connections across regions, foster exchange, and rethink cultural proximity in the Balkans.

How to apply
Please submit:
– Portfolio (PDF or link)
– Short project proposal (max 1 page)
– CV or bio
– Preferred period between June and August
📅 Deadline: April 15, 2026
📩 Apply here: [email protected]

Graphic design: Zahari Dimitrov

18/07/2025

Our latest resident at the Iatrus Residency program is Wang Cheng-Hsiang (Sean Wang), a photo-conceptual artist from Taipei, Taiwan. As both vision-impaired and a photographer, his practice explores the boundaries between the visible and the invisible, and between art and non-art. In recent years, his work has focused on photography after conceptual art, institutional critique, and the use of everyday technologies.

During his residency at Iatrus, Wang developed a project titled “Iconoclasm in Photography.” Drawing a parallel between Taiwan and Bulgaria—two nations that transitioned from authoritarian regimes to democratic systems during the 1980s—Wang investigates acts of iconoclasm, particularly the defacement and removal of political monuments. In Bulgaria, this is perhaps most famously illustrated by the 2011 artistic intervention that transformed a Soviet Red Army monument into a tableau of comic book superheroes. Similarly, in Taiwan, many statues of Chiang Kai-shek have been defaced or relocated in an attempt to reconcile with a difficult past.

Inspired by these acts, Wang experimented with digitally overlaying defaced Chiang Kai-shek statues onto photographs of Bulgarian communist monuments. The resulting composite images evoke a complex emotional landscape—one that reflects both historical specificity and shared experience. As Wang notes, the images seemed to restore a certain sacredness to the monuments, making them strangely untouchable again. Viewers responded with hesitation, aware of the weight of memory and interpretation embedded in these contested symbols.

Through this project, Wang invites a broader reflection on how societies visually negotiate with their pasts—and how photography can both document and disrupt those negotiations.

06/05/2025

OPEN CALL-OPEN CALL-OPEN CALL
SEASON.03: A GOOD NEIGHBOUR�

📍 Варуша Юг / Varusha South, Veliko Tarnovo (BG)�
🗓️ September 2025 – July 2026�
🖋️ Apply: 03.05 – 01.06.2025�
📩 Send to: [email protected]

What does it mean to live side by side—not just next to each other, but with each other?
For its third season, Iatrus Residency Program invites artists, researchers, curators, designers, and cultural practitioners to explore the concept of A Good Neighbour through community-rooted work, collaborative approaches, and shared experiences in the old capital of Bulgaria.
You’ll have time and space to focus on your project or research, connect with the neighbourhood of Varusha South, and reflect on how art can build trust, care, and proximity in today’s fragmented world.
💡 Residency includes:
�– Stay in Veliko Tarnovo (+ a short visit to Sofia)�
– Mentorship & curatorial support�
– Shared studios, garden & collaborative space�
– Public presentations, exhibitions, workshops
�– A residency fee of 900€/month (incl. housing and support with funding application + official invite letter)
Each session welcomes 2 artists from different disciplines, encouraging dialogue, exchange, and co-creation.
This is more than a residency—it’s an invitation to listen, connect, and grow together.
Visit our website for more details at iatrus.art

25/03/2025

✨✨✨

🔥Какво ни очаква следващата седмица в квартала?

🟠25.03 | Днес, заедно с посланика на Jameson Irish Whiskey Irina Yankulova, Tequila BAR Funky Monkey са ни подготвили специално меню с коктейли вдъхновени от Jameson Irish Whiskey и нямат търпение да ги споделят с нас.

🟠27.03 | четвъртък

19:30 | HEDO Belle view ни кани да сме сред първите, опитали новата реколта на едно знаково вино за "Меди Вали", както и отдавна изчерпана реколта на единствен по рода си бленд от 4 български сорта. Специално подготвеното за вечерта 4-степенно меню, вижте в събитието. Само с предварителна резервация на 0888 880535! Вход: 69 лв. Вечер на Българското вино - Меди Вали

19:30 | Във Vino Veritas - магазин за вино и дегустации отново ще гостува Живко Енчев с вината на Шато Авли. Този път ще ни покаже сорта каладок в 4 различни варианта, както и един прелюбопитен каберне фран обявен в класацията на DiVino TOP 50 тази година! Съпровод с хапките на шеф Слав Цонковски. Вход: 50 лв.

20:00 | kinematograf.bg се завръща TAM, като ни припомня чара на доброто старо късо кино. Киното, изпълнено с първокласно напрежение, хумор и сочни обрати. Кино, за което задължително си поръчвате коктейл и палите цигара! Вход: 7 лв. Прожекцията не е подходяща за деца. ТАМ | Тънки намеци [uncensored]

🟠28.03 | петък

18:00-20:00 | Дъстин Брок представя TaM pop-up изложбата „passages“ – картини, вдъхновени от пространствата, които артистът наблюдава във Велико Търново по време на едномесечния си престой в Iatrus Residency Program . Passages | Pop-up exhibition | Dustyn Bork

20:00 | Семейство меломани с ексцентричен вкус за музика ни кани на Frequencies in Bloom Party @ TaM. Петър Колев (Simple Tactics) & Гергана Йовчева (Kaya Siren) са зад грамофоните, а за визуализациите ще се погрижи Богомил Вълев (amokk), познат от колаборациите си с Particules. Вход: свободен.

🟠29.03 | събота

20:30 | House And Techno Party Veliko Tarnovo в Xtreme Bar & Chill! CRVSHER и Exitium са подготвили „взривяваща музикална селекция - от фънки/диско хаус и тек-хаус до техно”. Вход: 10 лв.

21:00 | Алтернативната банда IVA за първи път във Велико Търново (ТаМ)! Хипнотичен звук, сурова енергия и емоции без филтър. Вдъхновени от Massive Attack, Portishead и The Rolling Stones, IVA превръщат носталгията в нещо опасно, красиво и магнетично. Вход: 25 лв. IVA [Live]

🟠01.04 | вторник

18:00 | Знаете ли, че 1-ви април е не само Денят на шегата, но и Международният ден на птиците? Екологът Красимир Христов избира този ден за начало на любителския клуб по орнитология "В света на птиците" в ТаМ! Световен ден на птиците и представяне на клуб по орнитология

🌞Пожелаваме прекрасна седмица и до скоро!
🎨 View no. 2, 2025, акрил върху хартия, от Дъстин Брок

18/09/2024

Currently in our residency program we have this talented artist Lara Ovidio coming all the way from Brazil. Check on her bio here and the event we plan with her on Sunday, September 22 at TAM Veliko Tarnovo:

Lara Ovídio is a Brazilian artist based in São Paulo. She is currently developing the research project Eschatology as a PhD candidate in Visual Arts at the School of Arts and Communication at the University of São Paulo. In 2024, she was awarded the PrInt-USP/PDSE CAPES scholarship to spend six months in London as a visiting PhD student at Chelsea College, University of the Arts London.

Working with video, photography, and text, Lara experiments with artistic processes such as appropriation, montage, and collage. By creating sci-fi narratives that merge distant futures with remote pasts, blending fictional and non-fictional elements, she seeks to explore the relationship between image production, circulation, and the acceleration of the end of the world. Her main interests lie in future imaginaries related to extinction and outer space.

During her stay at Iatrus, she is exploring a provocative idea from art historian and curator Simona Vidmar. On one hand, the curator suggests that communist monuments, which have not vanished in the past forty years, must be “lucky” enough to become images and survive in this form. On the other hand, this survival comes at the expense of losing their historical significance.
Either ironically or not, Lara delves into these conflicting ideas to speculate on the following questions: Will the dominant mode of existence in the future be the image? Will bodily experience be reduced to seeing?

16/07/2024

It’s been an amazing first season for Iatrus Residency Program with artists, curators and art practitioners from all over the world! We are pleased and thankful to have had the opportunity to work and collaborate with all of you!! Devashish from India, Muhammad from Singapore, Nina Zeljkovic and Teodora Jeremic from Serbia, Aigerim Kapar from Kazakhstan, Ida Sophia and Joseph from Australia, Moran B from Ireland, Aaron Head from UK, Monica and Aaron from Austria, Gayane from Armenia and artist collective Alongprojects who are currently spending productive time at the residency ❤️❤️❤️ Thank you all for being with us!!

Here is also the moment to thank our partners in crime and financial supporters! TAM, National Culture Fund, Culture Moves Europe, Nenad Kostić, ARV.i, RadLab, Bobbina CS and the whole community of Veliko Tarnovo!

Now the time has come to release our new open call coming along with the SECOND SEASON of Iatrus beginning in October 2024!

It is the river Yantra which meanders through the city of Veliko Tarnovo and where the residency program takes its name from – Iatrus is the Latin name of the same river. It is considered by many as the biggest architect of the city (to quote Aigerim Kapar), shaping a landscape that speaks for its remarkable presence. Presence which seems to be there only to remind us that everything is constantly changing and flowing and if it happens that we step into the river for the first time, next time we do so, neither we, nor the river will be the same anymore. With this in mind we invite you to deep dive into our residency program and make space for change and transformation. Because the only constant is change.

Check our website for more info here:

https://iatrus.art

APPLY NOW - until July 31 !!!

Spread the word among your community! 🙏🙏🙏

13/12/2023

We are extremely pleased to welcome our new Iatrus participant, longtime collaborator and friend Aigerim Kapar.

Aigerim Kapar (b. 1987, Almaty - Balkhash) is an interdependent curator, interdisciplinary researcher, decolonial practitioner and eco-art activist.

Kapar founded .platform, a Central Asian community-based contemporary art and public engagement organization in 2015. She has also been organizing Art Collider, a school where art meets science bringing communities together, since 2017. Currently, Kapar curates a hybrid reality project Steppe Space, the place for contemporary art and culture of Central Asia, and initiated projects of care for lake ecosystems SOS Taldykol and Care for Balkhash in 2020.

Her key previous works include Re-membering: Dialogues of Memories, an international intergenerational project in memory of survivors and victims of 20th-century political repressions in Kazakhstan (2019), and Time&Astana: After Future, an urban art research and engagement project (2017-2018).

Aigerim Kapar’s research and participation at has been made possible thanks to the mobility program of National Culture Fund of Bulgaria ❤️❤️❤️

14/08/2023

Iatrus Residency program is pleased to announce its first participants for this very first season - Snezhana Ivanova Krasteva and Nastya Skvortsova. They will spend two weeks in beautiful Veliko Tarnovo and do research for the future initiative called Contemporary Art Triennale in the Eastern Balkans happening in 2025. During Фестивал 48 часа Варуша юг V.2 | 48 Hours Varusha South Festival V.2 on Saturday, August 19 at 6pm they will present the Triennale’s mission and vision, its collaborators and partners and most of all themselves as cofounders of this promising project.
We can’t wait to welcome them at Iatrus, but until they arrive here some details from their rich biographies:


Snejana Krasteva is currently Chief Curator at Luminous Art Foundation, Lisbon (since June 2022), co-founder and artistic co-director of the Eastern Balkans Institute of Art in Sofia, and former Senior Curator of the Garage Museum of Contemporary Art. She grew up between Bulgaria and Morocco, received her BA in Chinese studies from the University of Nanjing, China in 2004 and her MFA in Curatorial studies from Goldsmiths College, London, in 2011.

Anastasia Skvortsova is a curator, educator and researcher from Saint Petersburg, Russia currently based in Sofia, Bulgaria, where she is co-founder and Head of Research Eastern Balkans Institute of Art. Her work is focused on public art, participatory practices and educational turn. Her experience spans from running an independent art space Nepokorennie studio to design and implement educational programs for large scale institutions like Hermitage museum. Anastasia presented her work across Russia and Europe curating shows and organising workshops (Mediation school, Radiance Art Center, Apatity; The Goods of Time, Goethe Institute, Sofia etc...)

* This particular program of the residency is a joint project with DOMA Art Foundation.