We are happy to introduce you to the mentors and artists of our residency in Troyan between 15th and 25th of September 2025
Pedro Matos Fortuna, PhD (Setúbal, Portugal,
http://pedrofortuna.com.pt
Assistant Professor in the Department of Painting at the Faculty of Fine Arts -
University of Lisbon, https://www.belasartes.
clear predominance of Ceramics as medium. Is a member of Portuguese Ceramics and
Glass Society and Vicarte, http://vicarte.org, a research unit investigating glass and
ceramics for the Arts.
Creativity is an attitude we need to nurture; is made of distant and
unsuspected contributions. From what surrounds us and from our work, more
than a skill or a great idea. Creativity can be made of things coming from afar,
feeding an appetite we want to last.
Our best results speak of us and say what we otherwise wouldn't know how.
When we dare to try new things, share what, after all, will never be lacking, and
reveal sides we thought were fragile.
All this in a place you can barely imagine, using the best you have for
communication, even if the local language is comfortable, without the usual
refuges, accepting that the other has an irreplaceable contribution and that in
the construction of thought and memory, of form and color, lies the best you´ve
experienced.
Petra Hudcova - https://www.petrahudcova.
Petra Hudcová is a Czech visual artist whose practice spans installation, video, collage, and found materials. Educated in the UK at Leeds Metropolitan University and Central Saint Martins in London, she explores themes of spatial fragmentation, power dynamics, and utopian ideals—often responding directly to architecture and the socio-political context of urban environments. Her site-specific works seek to disrupt linear perceptions of time and space. In recent years, Hudcová has also turned her attention to ceramics, using the tactile and meditative nature of clay as a therapeutic medium and a new form of personal expression. https://instagram.com/petraaaq/
Neda Licheva is a talented ceramic artist from Troyan. She comes from a long line of artists well recognized for their craftsmanship and continues the tradition of her family, creating beautiful, refined and unique ceramic pieces - https://www.instagram.com/
and participating artists:
Marjani Hall -
Marjani’s artistic practice is grounded in cultural research that bridges ancestral knowledge systems with contemporary ceramic and glass expression. She is currently exploring how material culture, ritual practices, and ornamentation from the traditions of people of Diasporic lineages can be recontextualized through clay and glass as a living archive.
As a queer woman from the African Diaspora, who spent her formative years in the rural southern states of the USA, Hawaii, and China her practice uses ceramics as a way to explore heritage, memory, and identity. Marjani’s work centers on creating sculptural pieces that invite somatic engagement and emotional resonance. Through culturally significant forms and materials, she aims to spark collective memory and reflect on our shared futures. She incorporates elements like braiding hair, beads, body forms, cowrie shells, pine cones, and herbs to bring ancestral symbols into the present. A part of her practice is the act of braiding hair as a form or memory transmutation and adapting that act into clay, jesonmite, glass, and any media that will allow it. These pieces become a way for us to reclaim stories, feelings, and knowledge that may have been lost or overlooked, adding relevance in the here and now and forming the future.
Marjani’s work has been featured in exhibitions in her current home base of Lisbon, Portugal, where she is a candidate for a Master’s in Glass and Ceramic art and science for VICARTE, Faculdade de Ciências e Tecnologia da Universidade NOVA de Lisboa, and Faculdade de Belas-Artes da Universidade de Lisboa.
Ekaterina Andreeva - I am Ekaterina – a Master of Poster and Communication Design from New Bulgarian University, with a Bachelor’s degree in Scenography from the National Academy of Arts. My artistic expression finds its most natural and authentic form in drawing and painting, where I combine graphic with various painterly approaches, and experiment with materials. At the same time, I have always been drawn to three-dimensional forms – ceramics, volume, sculpture – as a natural continuation of the two-dimensional image.
In my creative process, the encounter between the outer and the inner world is essential. I am inspired both by large-scale forms such as landscapes and by small details – textures, colors, nuances – which I translate into a personal visual language. In the act of creation, the external – the material form – meets the internal – the subjective response and creative impulse. This unique interaction brings me the greatest inspiration, both in my own work and in the work of others. For me, creation is a process of research and experimentation, where the material reveals its possibilities and, in dialogue with it, the artist discovers new ways of self-expression – even new aspects of the self. The interplay between form and abstraction leads to a visual narrative, where the material “speaks” to the viewer beyond the original idea of the artist.
My work in scenography has deepened my understanding of this interplay between the external and internal, the material and the abstract. It brought me closer to other artistic fields – text, theater, and movement – where visual language exists in constant dialogue with performance and narrative. This experience has taught me to seek dialogue between diverse modes of expression.
Lydia Ciesielski -
My artistic practice moves between craft, design, and contemporary art. Rooted in a fascination with vessels and materials such as clay, glass, or wood, I create objects and ritual-like settings that address questions of impermanence, belonging, and transformation. By abstracting everyday forms and processes, my work opens up spaces for both collective and personal reflection.
