Marta Djourina

This series of works consist out of unique pieces developed in the darkroom. Djourina's aim is primarily to filter light through an object and to get both a reversal of the colours, as well as a dematerialisation of the usual three-dimensional object. The selected objects are banal everyday objects, which are translated into unique aesthetic results.

"During the experiments, the heat emitted by the light source in the enlarger often causes the objects to lose their shape and even to melt. After the exposure process, the everyday objects no longer exist in their original form. Djourina’s “filtergrams” are the only remaining evidence of their existence: images of seemingly banal everyday items, which the artist elevates to aesthetic objects."*

*Babette Marie Werner, Marta Djourina – The Dematerialization of the Everyday, 2016 - https://www.martadjourina.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/Marta_Djourina_Between_Media-The_Dematerialization_of_the_Everyday_Text-Babette_Marie_Werner_IBB_Preis_fuer_Fotografie_2016.pdf

Further texts about the project:
Dr. Thomas Köhler, Marta Djourina – Photographic interactions, 2016 - Download ENG Text 

Marta Djourina, (born 1991 in Sofia), completed her studies in art history at Humboldt University of Berlin (B.A.) and the Technical University in Berlin (M.A.) and in fine arts as a master student at the UdK Berlin. Since 2024 she is Artist in Research at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Antwerp and has been a guest lecturer at University of the Arts Berlin since 2020. Her works have been shown in numerous international exhibitions, most recently at MNAHA Luxembourg, Lage Egal Brussels, Haus am Kleistpark (Berlin), Sofia Arsenal - Museum of Contemporary Art, Goethe-Institut Bulgaria, ICA-Sofia, Berlinische Galerie - Museum of Contemporary Art, FeldbuschWiesnerRudolph (Berlin) etc. Her works are in the collection of the Berlinische Galerie, the Eskenazi Museum of Contemporary art, Indiana University in the USA, IBB Berlin, EiB Luxembourg among others. She has received the EMOP Arendt Prize for Photography (2025), the Presentation Grant for publications of the State of Berlin (2023), the AArtist in Residence of the Federal Foreign Office (2022), the Marianne Brand Prize for Photography (2022), BAZA Award (2021), the Eberhard Roters Scholarship (Preussische Seehandlung Foundation, awarded at the Berlinische Galerie, 2020), and others. 

In 2023, she spent 2 months at RU Residency Unlimited in New York (as a part of BAZA 2021) and 3 months at Cité internationale des arts in Paris (ADP Artist Development Program of the EiB Institute in Luxemburg). In 2024 she was continued her work on extending the project "Fluid Contact" at a residency at Museum Landskorna Foto in Sweden and in 2025 in Rostock in collaboration with the University of Rostock on the occasion of the international year of quantum physics. In 2024 Djourina published her first extensive monograph with DISTANZ Berlin, with texts by Gregory Volk, Babette Werner, Miriam Jesske and Dr. Sarah Frost, which has been translated into Bulgarian, German and English.