The exhibition can be visited until the end of July 2021
The National Ethnographic Museum presents its new exhibition “From the edges of embroidery”, located in three halls on the first floor of the Prince’s Palace. The exhibition tells the story of embroidery as a function, motifs and messages, as well as the changes that took place in the first years after the Liberation, when the embroidered parts began to be seen as Bulgarian heritage and were made into tablecloths and cushions.
The main highlight of the exhibition is a map of Bulgaria in embroidery donated by Prof. Ivan Gavrilov, Head of the Breast Surgery Clinic – Oncology Hospital. Designed by his mother Velichka Kamenova and measuring 195/165 cm from a total of 144 embroideries, it is an exact replica of the model “Map of Bulgaria, embroidered with motifs of traditional Bulgarian embroidery” by Iren Velichkova – Yamami. More than 2 kg of thread were used to make it, and the beginning of the donation project was set for good reason on March 3, 2020.
The exposition includes aquarelles and the previously unseen map of Bulgarian costumes by the artist – ethnographer Evgenia Lepavtsova. It is believed to have been painted in the late 1950s and left unfinished, and the numbers on it suggest the author’s idea to prepare an accompanying legend. This map has recently come out of the restoration studio to be shown to the museum public.
“The idea of placing different costumes and embroideries in a map of the country is a “trademark” of the ethnographic museums in the Balkans,” said Assist. Prof. Dr. Iglika Mishkova – deputy director of IEFSEM – BAS, responsible for the National Ethnographic Museum. “The most popular map in our country is the map-table published in 1941 by the Bulgarian Ethnographic Society, a work of the artist Georgi Petkov and the ethnographer Hristo Vakarelski. Iren Yamami and Velichka Kamenova continue this tradition. We are grateful to Prof. Gavrilov and his mother for the patriotic gesture and the recognition of our museum as a guardian of memory”. The curator of the exhibition is Dr. Chavdar Dimitrov.
For more information visit http://iefem.bas.bg
