Æther Sofia/Haga are two sibling independent art spaces in the heart of Sofia (BG) and The Hague (NL).

Æther Haga is initiated and curated by artists Marie Civikov and Voin de Voin and opened her doors for the very first time on 5 October 2018.

In The Hague (Haga / Xaгa) it ocasionally presents a selection related to Æther Sofia's program in Bulgaria and will unfold proposals of what intersects along the East/West trajectory based on the already started dialogues at the eastern point. Within this the project strives to make a more physical bond between the continental linear directions, its psycho-geographic potentiality and a bridge less unstable, built upon sharing, discussion and exchange. It is seeking to expose links and affects of lifetime traces of a generation lived under different conditions, this time coming together in quest to confide a new state of value and content through art and innovative practices.

Æther Haga will be programming irregular, located at de Denneweg 26 in The Hague, and shares its digital platform with Æther Sofia. Follow their Facebook page to stay updated.

Below you'll find the latest news followed by an archive of past activities.

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Photos: Eva Rietbergen

DARING TO DEFY THE STATUS QUO (photos below)

Double Fold Exhibition with 27 Bulgaria Based Emerging artists

Opening Æther Haga 24 July (Monday) 6 -10 p.m.

24 July - 30 July 2023

Æther Haga Denneweg 26, Den Haag

While setting our senses on the political condominium, drafts and forceful currents that take us back to the spring of our own existence.

Right at the core principle that we gaze, states that everything that happens to us is in mere relation to our own calling, projection, and perception of the world.

At complex times in need of direction and clear orientation we are dealing with strong societal division, brought to us by propaganda, war, media, and technological manipulations.The blind date experienced as present , lost, unable to orient. The shell of the norms has gotten thick and hard to pierce from outside. The status quo, a definition of the “commons,” defers itself from the power of the collective, regaining an amplified proportion, prompted by ideas and beliefs, we want to unleash and set free from.

Our “political bodies and minds” navigate through inner and outer spaces, constantly resetting the strive for break through, but what are the tools?In this invisible trap, we have become victims of the most dangerous strategy of the evil cooperation behind our governments, forming a fake layer of the protective shield, that overidentifies with gender, racial, sexual and political statuses. This instrumental mechanism is exactly the tactic of division of populations, large groups of people, making societies weaker and finally entirely controlled. One foot inside technocratic communism, we invite the artist to think and exhibit their insights into the personal revolution.

To my surprise, a lot of reflections address the construct of family. Its power dynamic between generation and its specific zeitgeist. The narrative clearly expressed in the notion of the constraint that defines a perfect family constellation and the deep need for understanding its importance.

We would like to think of this exhibition as a family, where all the members inhabit a house and are part of a family tree, and the works are contributed to the arrangement of the house.

The house as a representation of society at large and all its intersections. The fragmented pieces inside the house, coming from different places. The “unconscious,” taken by the stream of the past, subjected by the “emotional interior” of the present. And last, but not least, the neverending “restoration” as a sign for the future reverberation.

The garden created by the Bulgaria-based emerging artists is full of seeds and food for thought that strongly state that the status quo is nothing more than an unnecessary construction of societal norm that has exhausted itself and others along the way and needs to be defied.

Alert - In time of global warming, if the garden is burned, there will be no harvest…

Curator: Voin de Voin

Design: Victoria Kieffer

With the participation of:
Boyana Aleksova, Antonin Bouchy, Mitch Brezounek, Diana Bunkin, Elena Chergilanova, Sofia Dimova, Ivan Dokov, Aleksandar Gabrovski, Denitsa Georgieva, Gergana Ivanova, Andrea Kozhuharova, Yoanna Laskova, Alexander Lazarkov, Vanessa Miteva, Zlatomira Oprova, Alina Papazova, Georgi Pavlov, Gabriel Pendov , Robin Belluard And Anna Naydenova, Todor Rabadzhiyski, Galena Sardemova, Georgi Shishkin, Nikola Tsvetanov, Vmnotsafe, Miroslav Zhivkov, Slava George, Nevelin Ivanov, Gloriya Avgust

This project is made possible by a financial contribution from National Culture Fund, Bulgaria (NCF).

RÆcap & Æhead

Æther Haga reflects on her short but turbulent existence and makes a prediction for the future.

Shown on 24 September 2021, Hoogtij#66, The Hague at Æther Haga

Æther Haga presents: Capitalizing on my Love for You by Sofia Dimova

For the online edition of Hoogtij #64, Sofia Dimova captured an impression of her solo exhibition, 'Capitalizing on my Love for You', which was on view at Æther Sofia in February, with a soundscape by Sekaìology (Martijn de Geele).

✧✧✧ Panacea ✧✧✧ Victoria Kieffer

​

As part of the online edition of Hoogtij#61,
Æther Haga presents PANACEA by Victoria Kieffer.

Tune in Friday May 29 from 19:00 at https://www.hoogtij.net/en/61online-edition/

Wild Wild Æst

March 6  

19:00 – 23:00

Æther Haga, Denneweg 26, The Hague

Lola Göller, 12 Lullabies to sedate Assholes 

Thu. 26 September 2019, 19:00-23:00

Fri.   27 September 2019, 19:00-23:00, Part of Hoogtij#58

Recently Sofia Art Week (SAW) took place on 15-22 July in the capital of Bulgaria. A week filled with an international program of exhibitions, performances, workshops, lectures and related meetings, organized by Æther Sofia. With Hoogtij #58 Æther Haga shows one of the highlights with an installation by Lola Göller.

12 Lullabies to sedate Assholes, Lola Göller, Æther Haga

With the results of our Exchange project Æxchange Sofia-Haga we made a small publication which you can download here in PDF:

State of Apparition
23 May 19:00: Opening
24 May 19:00 - 23:00: Open as part of Hoogtij
Open until May 31 Thu-Sa

Æxchange Sofia-Haga, State of Apparition with works by Svetlana Mircheva and Stela Vasileva.
The exhibition is part of an exchange project with Æther Sofia, an art space in Sofia (BG) run by Voin de Voin and Æther Haga (‘Haga’ is the Bulgarian name for The Hague), an initiative for exchange in collaboration with Marie Civikov. For this occasion Marjolijn van der Meij and Arianne Olthaar will travel to Bulgaria in May, where they will make an exhibition at Æther Sofia.

State of Apparition tells a visual narrative around the phenomenon of the movement of natural light and the interaction with objects in space. A series of geometric constructions refers to this ever-changing situation taking a depart of the movement of the Earth around the Sun, explores the synchronization of the psychological condition created in order to perceive reality as such and in constant state of revealing. Further it seeks to make apparent the momentum of "Eventfulness", the moment when light, state and object align in order to depose and deliver a reflective parallel necessary for perceiving the new created depth and dimension.

Stela Vasileva invites the viewer to lay their gaze at the reflective surfaces of her at first sight constructivist objects. Exposed to direct sunlight, the installation casts shadows and creates a playground between matter and light. As a result, the viewer is involved in various and multiple shifts in perception. The works meditative effect explores the relation between the concreteness of forms and the liminal space, created in order to offer a possibility to transcend the geometrical point into a point of view.

Svetlana Mircheva’s obsession with language emerges as a natural development in the context of ‘the appearance’, of ‘the thing’ becoming visible. Departing from the abstraction of any form that was connected to other forms or symbols, she looks for ways to articulate a space that has the potential to become a language – both physically and mentally and a way to understand the choreography of light in familiar spaces. Meaning appears mutable, always in transition and transient. The moment of ‘apparition’, in the constellation of objects, is in play to coincide with a self-reflecting experience of the embodiment of both time and language, internally, simultaneously.

Æxchange Sofia-Haga is generously supported by Stroom Den Haag.

Stela Vasileva
http://stelavasileva.com/

Svetlana Mircheva

Svetlana Mircheva - Open Art Files

Æther Sofia - Haga
https://aethersofia.wixsite.com/artspace

Hoogtij
http://www.hoogtij.net/en/home-2/

Opening reception Æther Haga - October 5-6 2018

Friday October 5, 19:00 h.

Saturday October 6, 14:00 – 17:00 h.

Denneweg 26, Den Haag

>>> pictures below >>>

On 5 and 6 October 2018 Aether Haga will open her doors in The Hague for the first time. Occasionally it will present a selection of artists and will unfold proposals of what intersects along the east/west trajectory based on the already started dialogues at the eastern point.

Within this the project strives to make a more physical bond between the continental linear directions, its psycho-geographic potentiality and a bridge less faible, built upon sharing, discussion and exchange. It is seeking to expose links and affects of lifetime traces of a generation lived under different conditions, this time coming together in quest to confide a new state of value and content through art and innovative practices.

Æther Haga will focus on research, context and the background of both artists and subjects.

Æther Haga is a sibling of Æther Sofia that speaks a language vibrating and resonating in the morphic field, that in its virtue can make land appear closer than its actual physical properties.

Friday October 5 at 19:00 h.

•An introduction to “ReForget your past”, a project initiated by Nikola Mihov. Nikola Mihov was born in 1982 in Sofia. His first photobook Forget Your Past (2012) was listed among the best photobooks of the year by The British Journal of Photography, reviewed in FOAM magazine and nominated for the Deutsche Börse Photography prize.

Since 2009 he has been investigating the hundreds of monuments in public space in Bulgaria from the communist era, some of which have since been removed. He is now working on a third edition of "Forget your past". A number of remaining copies of the first edition have been edited by artists from Bulgaria and abroad. From this follow-up project, "ReForget your past", some thirty works of art have currently emerged, each with its own vision on this sensitive and underexposed subject from recent history.

www.nikolamihov.com

•Patricia Qi – PQI (1987) is an artist exploring (anti)functionality of word and speech in language through writing, installation and performance art from The Netherlands. We met her in Sofia where she, encountering the city, created a textual contribution to Æther’s publication/self-guide to “Becoming the Other”. At the event she will perform some of her recent work.

Patricia Qi studied European Studies (BA - The Hague), and EURUS studies (MA - Tartu) in The Netherlands and Estonia. She currently pursues work as an artist/writer.

•Desislava Pancheva is founder and the thriving force of KONTENTIVE and Hip Hip Library. KONTENTIVE is a creative studio & micro-publisher based in Sofia. It’s an evolving collective of collaborators that designs printed matter, digital products and websites.

Hip Hip library is a library and bookstore devoted to independent publications and self-publishing in the world of art: fanzines, periodical publications, comics, art- and photo books from all over the world. It’s specialized in artist editions and artist books. Desislava also is the initiator of the Sofia Art Book Fair, an annual event since 2016.

http://kontentive.com

•Camera obscura accumulative group portrait

As an opening ritual we’d like to catch Æther Haga’s light with you.

Saturday October 6 opening from 14:00 – 17:00

•Camera obscura accumulative group portrait