The art in DB23 was curated by our former arts editor Darren Defrain, who had to step down suddenly this year for personal reasons, and by the editor of our Bulgarian Literature folios T.M. De Vos, who selected some brilliant young Bulgarian artists to feature here. I’m grateful for their hard work and their dedication to the vision of Drunken Boat in being a place for encouraging aesthetic difference, experimentation, and especially supporting the work of emerging artists and writers. 

The art that follows includes work made in traditional mediums—photography, paintings, drawings, installation—and work created in new media—video, animation, and sound. Some of the work is expressly political: Svetlana Mircheva’s “For Laika With Love” which is, in my reading, a poignant comment on the abusive relationship between science and animals; and Julia Masden’s “North” engages with police surveillance and the militarization and racist violence of the police in the U.S.A., drawing a direct connection between this work and Young-Hae Chang Heavy Industries’ work “Dakota." Some of the work is more engaged with representation and observation, and with color and shape: Albena Nikolova’s extensive collection of photography, and the paintings in Zornista Garkova’s collection. 

Each one of these artists is showing us a different way of seeing and being in the world. These perspectives and differences are enriched as we see resonance between their works appear by their proximity in this journal.

Erica Mena
Drunken Boat Editor
April, 2016