Are You a Modern Girl? Rituals & Nowness by Juno Calypso, Otucha Collective, Veronika Desova, Sofia Dimova and Gery Georgieva at Punta, Sofia
Exhibition view, Are You a Modern Girl? Rituals & Nowness
Secret/ions Magnifiques - Veronika Desova (2025)
durational olfactory sculpture - 3.8m x 1.5m x 1.2m
scent, pheromones, sweat, tears, sea water, glass, metal, mirror
Juno Calypso
Slendertone I, 2015, 101.6 x 66 cm,
Slendertone II, 2015, 101.6 x 66 cm
Juno Calypso
Eternal Beauty, 2014, 76.2 x 45.7 cm
Sofia Dimova, She is no fool!, 2025
Sirena Spidera
Her Eternal Return - A video by Gery Georgieva
Otucha Collective - Velizara Karaivanova, Agnieszka Kucharska, Dorota Michalak, Ola Zielińska
In Bulgaria there is the custom of offerings - at a certain period of time the relatives of the deceased distribute to people from their social circle packages of wheat, bread and sweets. This is one of the many rituals for dealing with trauma set in Orthodox tradition. The symbolism of the gestures and the mechanisms of repetition are intended to take the community, and ultimately the individual, through various stages of life without necessarily being a conscious process for the one who practices them - they act as a kind of forced therapy. In this sense, one of the main functions of rituals is to mark time and life cycles. Without this distinction, we risk ending up in a situation of timelessness in which nothing has an end, and this leads to exhaustion at the very least. This phenomenon is reinforced by the dynamics of modern life, in which we are constantly consuming and generating content, and the constant flow of information we are exposed to removes the possibility of pause and grounding. The counterpoint to all this are rituals. According to Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, they are “temporary techniques for making oneself at home in the world.”
The exhibition presents 5 original readings on the topic of rituals and nowness, mostly from the perspective of the women's experience (though not limited to it). It questions the modern woman and her attributes and the role rituals play in her life.
“Are You a Modern Girl!” explores the way rituals are contained and refracted in the present, problematizing their necessity, the effect of commodifying them, and the possibility of them becoming something dangerous if not handled with care. Many of the rituals of modernity are evil doppelgangers of the original idea of these practices. They lack the basic qualities of folk customs, such as passing the “test of time” and the aspect of socialization and community building. Modern rituals are often tied to the market and sometimes have an alienating rather than an inclusive effect. Such are, for example, beauty rituals, which often stimulate narcissism, consumerism and a society of productivity in which the individual must be in a constant state of capitalising on the self, in a tireless process of self-improvement. Other contemporary practices are based on millennia-old traditions - “Are you a modern girl” is a dissection of the fabric of everyday life through the seemingly invisible aspects in which rituals are present.
This exhibition is by no means a critique of modernity in favour of traditional culture. Not all rituals are empowering, some are oppressive towards certain community groups in favour of others and should be radically rejected. Through photography, video, sculpture and performance, the project presents different perspectives on the extinction, transformation and sustainability of rituals in contemporary society. The starting point for its understanding is the relationship between the new models of communication, forms of work and the economic structures we live in, as institutes of anxiety and alienation, and rituals as a potential means of the aforementioned “making oneself at home in the world”.
With the support of The National Culture Fund, “Creating” program and Bombay Sapphire.
