Nomas* Projects / Art, Dundee

"Dreams of Matter"

ONE WEEK OUTDOOR FILM SCREENING

Nedyalka Panova; "Dreams of Matter" - as part of UNESCO Year of Light 2015.

26 January 2015 - 1 February 2015 - evenings

35 Yeaman's Shore Dundee, DD1 4BJ (Thornton's Building - opposite Train Station) Google Map: https://goo.gl/maps/Lp8nn

Artist's Statement

The growing number of potential materials for art practices has changed my perspective about my practice, whose focus has now shifted to a state between being a sculptor and being a materials scientist. I am questioning 'How far can my knowledge and aesthetics drive me down this new path?' My work explores the boundaries between organic and non-organic matter and studies the fragile balance between them. What intrigues me the most in this creative exploration is the properties of materials and how these change as a function of scale.

In the course of my MA in Art and Science (2011-2013) I have closely explored the nanofabrication method and nanoscale materials. The application of these materials creates a narrative and concepts for our future as humans, artists and scientists, and it also raises ethical and environmental issues which I have being looking to explore through dialogue in the last three years.

My collaborative work with scientists brought me to a point where dialogue has become a mutual understanding and shared experience in the process of questioning, testing and generating a new body of work that for artists and scientists is an 'object of desire': a research paper or an art exhibition.

'Dreams of Matter' shows my artistic relation to aerogel, a material I have explored with The Synthetic Optics Group, at The University of St. Andrews in 2014. For a sculpture every material is a statement and aerogel as such states that what matters most is the periphery, the edges, the outskirts and the interconnected emptiness of its pores: the enclosed breath. This is where its power remains.