“What I’m interested in is the past, the fact that we don’t have any real memories of what has been before us, our return, over and over again, to things that are not always part of our own experience but have become part of us,” that is how artist, playwright, sculptor and photographer Kremena Nikolova begins her narrative. She was born in 1979 in Varna, where she first came to realize what she wanted to do in her life – art. And she remembers the very place – her grandfather’s carpenter’s workshop – he himself lectured at the Dobri Hristov National School of Arts in Varna – a spacious place with large windows, its own specific smell of turpentine and innumerable bits of paper for Kremena to scribble on. Words are the other love in her life. Since she was little she would fill dozens of notebooks with stories and when the time came for her to “grow up” and make her first big choice, she opted for Bulgarian Language and Literature at the St. Kliment Ohridski University, Sofia, leaving the arts for another place and time.

“When the time came for me to take my degree I found I was really scared – I was about to begin a life that was totally predictable with clear-cut boundaries, opportunities and environment. While I dreamt of opening up to another culture and people,” Kremena says. So, in 2002 she decided to go to Paris. “Because I knew the language, I had two close friends living there and also because of the city’s incredible cultural heritage. Even then I knew I wanted my work to be involved with memory.”

Her intention was to spend 1-2 years there; she had no expectations and no other plans. Twelve years later she has graduated the Ecole des Beaux-arts de Versailles and has undergone training with Bernard Blistène at the Louvre. “I stayed on because of the people I met there, and to be honest – I really got carried away with the art projects that came my way,” Kremena says.

“I have been meeting people I share a lot of common ground with in my work. Through the years such encounters came naturally. At the moment I am working with a French actress and mime Angèle Lemort. Our encounter was unexpected, we met in a place where neither she nor I should have been. A fortnight after we met we had started discussing a project together and that resulted in our show called T(h)race. We have been working together with Angèle for six years.”

In 2012, the two wrote the text Lettre a Deux Voix (Letter in two voices) for the collection of stories Marilyn Apres Tout, dedicated to Marilyn Monroe 50 years after her death. It brings together the stories of 18 men and 18 women aged 17 to 71 in French, English, Russian, Arabic, Italian and Bulgarian for each of the 36 years in the life of Marilyn Monroe. “Seeing as Angèle and I are accustomed to working in two voices and four hands, we wrote a dialogue between Marilyn Monroe and Norma Jean. Of course, my part of the dialogue is in Bulgarian hers – in French. The collection came out as a bilingual book, we ourselves translated it into French. Then we organized readings; the adventure continues,” says Kremena Nikolova.

The other adventure the two are embarking on is the play Trace/Thrace. The word play is quite intentional.

“It is the story of a family who emigrated from Bulgaria to France after World War II, leaving their baby behind in the care of the mother’s sister. The child never appears in the story, making it clear that any bond between parents and child has been severed on both sides. Events come tumbling one after another – I shall keep the story secret as I am hoping to stage the play in Bulgaria soon. What makes the project interesting is that we brought together an international team of actors from France, Bulgaria and Belgium. We rehearsed in Belgium and in France and did a lot of experimenting until we had arrived at an exceptional coordination among the actors. They come from different backgrounds, drama schools and are all different ages. They also speak different languages, so the play is also an amalgamation of different languages. There are parts when only Bulgarian is spoken.”

One of Kremena’s biggest successes is the presentation of Trace/Thrace at the Avignon festival in 2012. Another success she is proud of is the fact she was among the finalists at the Paper in Modern Art national competition organized by the Yordan Paroushev foundation because it was the first time she was able to put her works on show in Bulgaria.

English version: Milena Daynova