BEST SERIES: LILYANA KARADJOVA 'Within A Folder'
N.Y. Photo Curator: Global Photography Awards- 'Where Photography & Philanthropy Meet' BEST SERIES: LILYANA KARADJOVA 'Within A Folder'
WITHIN A FOLDER 1 by Lilyana Karadjova
BEST SERIES
(Click on image for larger view)

Ellen Wallenstein says, "I was totally intrigued. I liked the repetition from side to side and how all the images meshed. Beautiful palette; great use of layering."

Lilyana Karadjova says, "I am interested in photography as an in-between medium with a specific dual potential.

The photography links the real and the imaginary, the transparency and the surface, the metaphors about the window and the tunnel, finds meaning in itself in the definition about the near distance (the well-known definition of Walter Benjamin).

In my work I investigate this complex nature of the medium by deepening and transformation of the photographic specifics. The artistic interpretation of the photographic involves experiencing imaginable levels of an intricate reality in front of the lens.

As a historian of photography I am tempted to experiment with the material carrier, the chemical processes, the structure of the camera and the optical phenomena.

I like human freedom and imperfection which yield the classical and alternative processes, but I consider light as 
the primary and most important key that enables insight into the photographic.

I do not perceive the camera as a fixed finished instrument nor do I accept the photographic transparency as constant.

I can substantiate this perception with facts from the history of the technical development of the camera that led to changes in the device and the transparency.

The adaptation and modification of the technical devices is part of the photographic process which held the 
photographers' attention in the first sixty years after the invention of photography, and also in the present day, albeit with a more limited popularity. In the present time the photographic technical tools have a 
rich and artistically yet unstudied potential to transform reality into specific light expressions and become visual reflections on the essence of light."

Lilyana Karadjova is a Bulgarian photographer, art historian and 
philosopher. Her work investigates photography as an in-between medium 
linking the real and the imaginary, the transparency and the surface. 

The duel nature of photography is an object of study in numerous projects focused on the peculiarities of optical phenomena and the chemical processes.

Lilyana Karadjova lectures in MA programs in Photography and Art Therapy 
in the National Academy of Arts, Bulgaria, and in BA and MA programs in 
the New Bulgarian University on theory and history of photography, analysis of the photographic image, black-and-white photography, alternative photographic processes, photo art therapy.

Lilyana Karadjova is Doctor of Philosophy in Art History (2016, National 
Academy of Arts, Bulgaria), with doctoral thesis on Psychological concepts of imagination in art and photography. Her research interests are in the field of psychological approaches in the theory of 
photography. She is a visiting professor in the Abat Oliba CEU University, Barcelona. In the field of criticism she has worked as an art columnist in the national Novinar daily (2008-2016) and frequently 
contributed to various magazines such as L'Europeo, Art and Critique and 
the Kultura [Culture] newspaper.
Selected projects and solo exhibtions in photography: Postidentity 
(2010, Gallery “Academy”, Sofia), Dream Machine (2011, Museum Center of 
Modern History, Plovdiv), Dark Thoughts, Light Spots (2015, the fridge), 
Photographic Original and Art Practices (2017,2018, The Red House Centre 
for Culture and Debate), Film’s Not Dead (2018, The Red House Centre for 
Culture and Debate), Freedom Here-and-Now (2018-2019, Sofia Arsenal - 
Museum of Contemporary Art), Limits of the Photographic: Traces and 
Surfaces (2019, Gallery “Academy”, Sofia).

www.lilyanakaradjova.com
info@lilyanakaradjova.com
 
N.Y. Photo Curator: Global Photography Awards- 'Where Photography & Philanthropy Meet' BEST SERIES: LILYANA KARADJOVA 'Within A Folder' (Click on image for larger view)
WITHIN A FOLDER 2 by Lilyana Karadjova
BEST SERIES
(Click on image for larger view)