ARV.International is an artist residency located in Vishovgrad, a rural village in the central part of northern Bulgaria. It is a place for Bulgarian and international artists to find inspiration, focus on their work, and produce solo exhibitions. ARVI hosts a maximum of three artists each month from May to October every year. The artists-in-residence conclude their monthly stay with a solo exhibition at gallery Heerz Tooya in Veliko Turnovo.

Since 2008 a small farm in Vishovgrad has been renovated and emerged as an independent artist-run entity dedicated to Bulgarian and international visual artists, curators, writers, performers, and researchers. ARVI was established in 2017, having its first artists-in-residence. Since then, it has continued to provide artists with a place to live and a studio for individual artistic practice and research. In addition to introducing Bulgarian village life to international artists, ARVI is a hub for initiating exhibitions and other collaborative projects with other artists, art associations, and cultural institutions today. As such, ARVI benefit both the artist-in-residence and the general public by evolving artistic awareness and insights from the contemporary art world and the everyday life of Bulgaria.

After liberation from Ottoman rule, Vishovgrad had a population of around 3500; now, approximately 300 people live in the village. Bulgaria is one of the countries in the world after the fall of the Berlin Wall and communist rule in 1989, with the most significant population decline, effectively creating phenomena such as 'ghost villages.' Although ARVI is apolitical, there are nevertheless potent issues regarding its public situation. The current state of Vishovgrad and other Bulgarian villages depicts the backyard of Europe, rich with a not yet explored embodiment of what we are confronted by in the known stages of arts today — creating intermediary platforms in this environment between art and the public, ARVI seek to evoke new thoughts and ideas, artistic creations, projects, and topics of research.

ABOUT ARV.I OVERVIEW APPLICATION ARCHIVE 2022 ARCHIVE 2021 ARCHIVE 2019 ARCHIVE 2018

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ABOUT ARV.I
OVERVIEW
APPLICATION

ARCHIVE 2022
ARCHIVE 2021
ARCHIVE 2019
ARCHIVE 2018