Space Junk – Mariana Tantcheva

Goethe-Institut Bulgaria / 12.05.2026 – 13.06.2026

Opening: 12 Mai, 18:30 🛰️ 👉 Earth’s orbit is no longer an empty space, but an industrial zone where more than 15,000 complex machines now circulate. The night sky is already 10% brighter than it once was, and projections suggest that satellites may reach one million in the coming years. In Space Junk, Mariana Tantcheva examines space science as the highest achievement of our civilization, but also as a clash of extremes, in which brilliant ideas, complex machinery, and immense resources ultimately end up as a simple luminous scratch in the sky or as a piece of scorched metal smashed to the ground. This is part of the life cycle of this technology, but also a metaphor for a culture capable of turning even its greatest achievements into a single-use product. Mariana Tantcheva is a multidisciplinary artist living and working between Sofia and Amsterdam. Her practice spans painting, animation, installation, and mixed media, with oppositions as a recurring theme. Rather than focusing on specific technologies or failures in our expansion into space, the exhibition Space Junk looks at what returns to Earth. Traces, fragments, and surfaces reveal how the sky is losing its inaccessibility, becoming yet another place we leave behind.