Performance in front of the building of the Union of Plovdiv Artists at the opening of the Annual Youth Exhibition
Bendji / Albena Mihaylova is a participant in the annual Youth Artists Exhibition. Her monumental installation - a huge handprint and a corroded metal plate - has captured an unusual presentation space - it hangs in the middle of the hall. Its name is «Open List for B.». «Open List» is a necessary document issued by the Ministry of Internal Affairs to sail with a boat along the Black Sea.
The exhibition visitors are startled and her colleagues are surprised when, without prior announcement, Bendji undresses the strange robe she has been walking with so far, puts it on the sidewalk in front of the hall and lights it. The robe is a collage of the artist‘s personal documents - police letters to her, bans on sailing or leaving the country, fines for contacting foreign nationals, etc. Like a papier-mâché sculpture or a human hulk, the slave burns like a living man. The visitors lay the flowers, they carry for the exhibition beside the burnt remains.
The author responded to the communist government‘s crackdowns on the „revival process“ in Bulgaria since the mid-1980s. Albena has become an unwanted target of security services because of its relationship with a boy of Turkish ethnic origin.
The act of the artist is reminiscent of Jan Palah‘s self-ignition act from January 1969. Only 20 years have passed since the Prague Spring political collisions. But who remembers?