10 Questions with Mihail Vuchkov

Mihail Vuchkov began his media career in 1988 as a program host on the music TV channel MM. In the following years, he went on to hold various positions in MM, such as director, producer, screenwriter, and program director.

In May 2008, Vuchkov completed his MA studies in Media Sciences at New School University, New York. While in New York, he also worked for the media giant ViacomCBS, in the team behind the VH1 program I Love the New Millenium.

After returning to Bulgaria, he worked as an editor, casting director, and executive producer for Chouchkov Brothers, Old School Productions, Constantin Entertainment, BTV, and Nova TV.

In 2010, he made the professional move from TV to cinema, working since then as a marketing strategist. He is responsible for the marketing strategies and advertising campaigns of various international and Bulgarian film productions, such as Sneakers, The Foreigner, Goodbye Mother, Shelter, Stoichkov, The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn, The Three Musketeers, The Invincibles, Broken Road, 12A, Lilly the Little Fish, No One, Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets, Yatagan, Bad Girls, Action, etc.

In 2012 and 2013, Vuchkov became part of the organizational committee of Sofia Pride. His involvement resulted in changing the Sofia Pride route to its present one and laying the foundations of Sofia Pride Film Fest and Sofia Pride Art Week.

Mihail Vuchkov graduated in Spatial Design from the St Luke National High School for Applied Arts, Sofia, as well as in Stage Design from New Bulgarian University. So far, he has had three single-artist exhibitions: Drugness, United in Diversity, and Shake the Fear.

@misho.vuchkov

The Other Bulgarian Women | Project Description

The Other Bulgarian Women premiered in Sofia, Bulgaria, on International Women's Day, and it sparked a national controversy.

The artworks in the exhibition show trans women in traditional Bulgarian dress and wreathed in Bulgarian flowers as a statement of national identity. It is a statement being hotly contested by nationalist groups and parties in the country. The photographs are amplified with an innovative technique, using multiple layers of photographs on thin sheets of plexiglass, then animating the pieces with customized LED light designs, changing in time with electronic music.

The show has stirred outrage in Bulgaria's national media ever since it was announced. National identity is hard to blend with LGBTQ+ rights in Bulgaria. It is one of the most conservative European countries when it comes to LGBTQ rights, next to Poland and Hungary. Nationalists and part of society don't want trans women to wear traditional dress and touch symbolic Bulgarian roses. The controversy increased when news broke that the project had received state funding. Commentators demanded the Minister of Culture's resignation, and on 15 February, some of the staff on the commission that awarded the exhibition the grant were asked to resign. Half of the members did.

The exhibition provoked huge controversies that lasted more than a month. The opening was marred by planned protests from nationalist groups. Activists from the Bulgarian group Feminist Mobilizations were staged a counter-protest, standing against "fascism" and for support of "The Other Bulgarian Women". The situation grabs the attention of the international press, showing how big the problem is with trans minorities in this part of the world.

INTERVIEW

First of all, introduce yourself to our public. Who are you, and how would you describe yourself as a person and an artist?

I am a visual artist and the author of the art exhibition "The other Bulgarian Women," a highly discussed event in the Bulgarian media because I have used trans women models to create my compositions. My style, regarding these compositions, is unique, called by me Analog-Naivism, each composition in the series of nine being made up of several photos superimposed on thin plexiglass layers separated by flashing LED lights. As a person in my head, I live in a world that may come into being long after I'm gone. A world where all people, regardless of their differences, have something that unites them. They are all reasonable and what they respect, above all, is the fact that they are living, sensible beings, while their form does not matter at all. 

You work with art, but also with cinema and in the past you worked with television. But let's take a step back. What is your artistic background? And when did you first realize you wanted to be an artist?

In the course of my education, I went to the high school of art, and at the University, I did theater and scenography, so I could draw and paint in the traditional way, but I switched to photography and image editing. I graduated in Spatial Design from the St Luke National High School for Applied Arts, Sofia, as well as in Stage Design from New Bulgarian University. So far, I have had three single-artist exhibitions: "Drugness", "United in Diversity", and "Get Rid Of The Fear". There wasn't a certain moment in the past when I realized that I wanted to be an artist. My mother told me that I couldn't even walk when I started to draw on the walls of our family house.

You have had significant International experiences before moving back to Bulgaria. What convinced you to move back? And how has this helped or influenced your art? 

I never went to live abroad with the idea of moving there permanently or to immigrate. All my travels have been connected with work, education, or because of my family. Every country with its culture influences you permanently, so every travel influenced my art indirectly too.

How are your experiences in cinema and television influencing your current work?

The main influence is connecting with the motion. The motions of colors, the motion of time are something that we can not see often in traditional art.

Let's talk about the project The Other Bulgarian Women. What are the main themes behind this work? And what does it aim to say to the viewers?

The Other Bulgarian Women has, in fact, been in the making for 12 years. The idea for the show came to me in 2010 when I returned to Bulgaria after an MA in Media Studies at New York's New School. At that time, I was sharing a flat with my friend Natasha Rich, a trans woman, at the start of her transition. That year she decided to join the Sofia Pride Parade and come out as a transgender woman. The next day, she lost her job. Officially, she was let go due to the financial crisis, but I believe it was because she had been seen on TV during the parade. I wanted to help her, so I went to Sofia Pride Parade, the only LGBTQ+ NGO we had in Bulgaria at the time, to see how we could get her job back. They told me: "Misho, you are naive. You spent too much time in New York City. We cannot do anything about a queer person being fired in Bulgaria." Unable to find another job, she moved out of Sofia and back in with her parents in north-eastern Bulgaria. When somebody is fighting, you should respect her will to follow her dreams, and her personality. Instead, the only thing Natasha got was a slap on her face. I decided to do something. I started doing research on trans identity. I had to do my homework well done because Bulgaria is one of the most homophobic and transphobic countries in the EU. I wanted to find uplifting examples of trans women fighting for their happiness in Bulgaria. But it took several years until I found eight people who wanted to act as models. Every single one of them told me the same story: that they'd go dressed as women to job interviews and just get asked if they are "really" women: no professional questions. After multiple rejections, they'd get tired and start presenting as guys. One of them had such gender dysphoria that she had to take a shower and go to sleep fully dressed. My research reaches me back to a time when cis women were similarly discriminated against. I wondered how artists portrayed women before they got their rights. Vladimir Dimitrov's name came to my mind. The vast majority of his works represent peasant women working in the fields, picking fruit in a village in the Kyustendil province between 1924 and 1938, as changes in women's rights were only starting to happen in major cities. Initially, I took photographs recreating Dimitrov's portraits but was displeased with the result. So, together with an engineer, I created plexiglass installations with LED lights so that the colours of each artwork change roughly 50 times every 20 minutes. The changing shades are a particularly potent metaphor for gender and our perceptions of it. Every conversation, and every experience adds something to your personality. I wanted the viewer to connect with the picture 

How did you come up with the idea for this project? And what was your creative process like? 

There are nine artworks; eight of them are portraits, and one in which the compositional characters are the girls who participated as models in the exhibition. Nine is my favorite number, so that was a starting point for me when it came to how many artworks the exhibit should have.
The idea came to me almost ten years ago, but the main reason for creating this particular technique was my desire to recreate the paintings of Vladimir Dimitrov Maystora.
But I wanted them to be in a form where the public, the people who will see the artworks, would have the feeling of these photographs as paintings.
When I was shooting the material, I took some time to think about what could make my photos look like paintings. The trick about painting is "dimension" (dimension of space) because in paintings, you only have two dimensions, but we have the feeling of three dimensions. So that was my starting point, I took all the shots, divided each dimension into a personal layer, and it gave me this feeling that I wanted the audience to have the three-dimensional feeling.

The series deals with important themes; how much do you think art can influence the general public on such themes? 

"The other Bulgarian Women" was a highly discussed event in the Bulgarian media. The exhibition literally divided the country. The show has stirred attention in Bulgaria's national media ever since it was announced. So, I believe art can influence the general public on such themes. For the first time in our history, in all of our national media, we speak about trans people.

You recently opened an exhibition to showcase this series; tell us more about it. What was the reaction to the exhibition? And what was the feedback from the public? 

National identity is hard to blend with LGBTQ+ rights in Bulgaria. Nationalists would say that through my art, I am changing the meaning of history — as a criticism. They don't want trans women to wear our traditional dress and touch our symbolic Bulgarian rose. But LGBTQ+ people are Bulgarian, just like everyone else in this country. 
The controversy only increased when news broke that I had received state funding to create the series via the Ministry of Culture grant promoting equality. The grant had amounted to £4,000 — roughly enough to cover two of the eight works.
Despite the small sum, some commentators demanded the Minister of Culture's resignation, and on 15 February, some of the staff on the commission that awarded me the grant were asked to resign. Half of the members did.
The fact that the authorities gave me some money is important because it was the first time that the Bulgarian government acknowledged that Bulgarian trans women exist. For me, the biggest trans problem in Bulgaria is visibility. We know that somewhere there are trans people in our society, but we're only fine with them because we're not seeing them.
The exhibition The Other Bulgarian Women has polarized society in its views and resulted in a veritable flood of comments on social media. The project has given rise to controversy and protests. While the nationalist groups protested the exhibition, activists from the Bulgarian group Feminist Mobilisations were standing in support of the show as part of the group's march for International Women's Day.

Over the past months, we have witnessed many online exhibitions and live events. What do you think of the recent changes in the art world? Would you consider presenting The Other Bulgarian Women as an online exhibition?  

Because of the specific technic I have used to create the artworks, The Other Bulgarian Women can not be presented as an online exhibition.

And lastly, what are you working on right now? Anything exciting you would like to tell our readers?

Right now, I am focused on the idea of presenting the exhibition around the globe. I would like to find more like-minded people of the idea of gender equality and the beauty of art. People who can help "The Other Bulgarian Women" to spread the message that people have to stop questioning the rights of existence of the human beings. After the show in Sofia, the exhibition was shown at the "What You See Festival" in Utrecht, Holland.