Dessislava Terzieva: Artist in residence

Dessislava Terzieva is a Bulgarian-American artist whose multidisciplinary practice encompasses photography, sculpture, installation, and public intervention. Employing a utilitarian approach, she improvises with pre-existing objects gathered from personal experience and immediate environments to explore concepts of nostalgia, (be)longing, (dis)connection and authenticity. Her visual language and conceptual investigations result are influenced by lifetime of oscillation between two contrasting worlds: the post-communist Bulgaria of her birth and the post-industrial Detroit of her migration. Through the re-contextualization of everyday materials embedded with symbolic and cultural connotations, she engages in an act if imaginative rediscovery that not only seeks to bridge gaps between time and space, but to establish the in-between state as a place unto itself. Having recently settled in Mexico, Terzieva continues to explore themes of diaspora, belonging, and the concept of home, adding her voice to the ever evolving narrative of migration and cultural exchange.

Terzieva holds a BA in Political Science from Oakland University and an MFA in Sculpture from Cranbrook Academy of Art, where she received the Museum Purchase Award and her work was accessioned into the permanent collection of Cranbrook Art Museum. Prior to her graduate studies, she was a prominent figure in Detroit's art scene, curating independent exhibitions and creating site-specific installations and public artworks. Her work has been exhibited internationally at venues such as Sarieva in Bulgaria, Manifesta 14 in Kosovo, Citronne Gallery in Athens, Greece, ART-O-RAMA in France, College for Creative Studies Center Gallery in Michigan; Sculpture Center in Ohio; Huron Art Space in California,Mönchskirche in Germany, Guck mal Günther, Kunst in Switzerland. Terzieva has been rewarded in residencies at Proyectos Multiproposito (Mexico), BedsuyArt Residency (New York), and Atelierhaus Hilmsen (Germany).