Dez 4, 2025

Exhibition Opening »Stray Garden« by former Solitude Fellow Marco Pando

»Garden I« (2025) © Marco Pando

As part of a three-month residency of the Solitude Exchange Network – in cooperation with Atelietata and the Goethe-Institut Bulgaria – Solitude alumnus Marco Pando is presenting his research exhibition Stray Garden at the independent art space Galeriata Atelietata in Plovdiv, Bulgaria.

During his stay, he realized the research exhibition Stray Garden, which offers insight into Pando’s artistic engagement with the city of Plovdiv. The starting point of his work is the concept of meiofauna – tiny invertebrate organisms that live in aquatic and sandy sediments and serve as bioindicators of environmental pollution. During his residency, Pando collected and recycled building materials such as wood and foam to integrate them into his artistic practice.

Meiofauna play a central role as natural cleaners of the Maritsa River, which flows through Plovdiv. Their sensitivity to environmental changes makes them a mirror of the region’s ecological state and forms the conceptual foundation of Pando’s work. Pando also draws parallels between the overlapping cultural and archaeological layers of Plovdiv and the structural characteristics of meiofauna. Like sediments, various historical and cultural strata have accumulated in the city and continue to coexist.

In Stray Garden, Pando presents wearable, floating mosaics inspired by the life habits of meiofauna and the multilayered history of Plovdiv. The works explore themes of memory, layering, and transformation.

The exhibition Stray Garden is supported by the Liviana Benavides Galeria.

Opening: December 4, 2025, 6 pm
Exhibition dates & opening hours: December 4 to 9, 2025, 2–6 pm
Venue: Galeriata Atelietata, 73 Raiko Daskalov St, Plovdiv

Marco Pando is an artist, filmmaker, and researcher living and working between Amsterdam (Netherlands), Berlin (Germany), and Lima (Peru). He holds a B.A. in Fine Arts from the Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú. In 2005/2006 he was a resident at the renowned Rijksakademie in Amsterdam. Since then, he has been an artist in residence at, among others, Künstlerhaus Bethanien in Berlin (2018) and the Cité Internationale des Arts in Paris (2021). He was a fellow of Akademie Schloss Solitude in the Visual sphere of practice in 2024/2025.

Pando has received numerous awards for his work, including the First Prize in the National Painting Competition (2019) organized by the Central Bank Museum of Peru (BCRP Museum). His films and videos have been screened at international film festivals, including the International Film Festival Rotterdam (Netherlands); the Biennale of Moving Images in Buenos Aires (Argentina); and Rencontres Internationales in Berlin and Madrid. His videos are part of the collection of the Eye Film Museum in Amsterdam, and several of his film projects have been supported by the Mondriaan Fund.

Pando’s works explore poetic narrative structures that transcend geographic and historical boundaries. Living between Europe and South America allows him to navigate the cultural differences of these regions, positioning himself as a bridge between European culture and his Latin American roots. He sees himself as a researcher who examines the peripheries of Europe from his own perspective, relating cultural identities across different contexts.