Jivko Darakchiev

Jivko Darakchiev was born in Sofia, Bulgaria. He lived in the United States for 16 years and now holds a double nationality. In 2008 he finished his studies in cinema with a concentration in directing and camera at Tisch, school for the arts in New York University. He then worked in the production company Dawn of Man as creative director and cinematographer. In 2011 he was accepted to Le Fresnoy, national studio for contemporary arts, a two-year post-diploma program in France. Now, he lives and works between Paris and New York. Jivko is interested in the physicality of people and things - possible objects arranged within a space. His work tends to the basic aspects of human behavior: our syndromes of being and of doing, the objects we use - as much those specific to a certain place and time as those universal to everyone. These daily gestures and items are orchestrated in a different manner in order to establish among them unexpected relationships, often absurd, sometimes funny. Through patient attention and reappropriation, what is familiar can be interpreted anew. An ethnographic study of the human everyday is synthesized into soft science fiction.