Mina Minov
Bulgaria

What is the very first thing you do when you walk into your studio each day?
When I enter my studio I put my jacket over one of the seven chairs I keep there. Each time it looks different, as if seven different people wear it. The only chair I never use for that is the one with the brown stripe in the middle, because utilitarian objects have to be neutralized.

What is your drive for making art? (Is it a need? Does it help you think? Is it for yourself? Are you trying to tell someone else something? To whom?)
Making for me comes while cleaning my thoughts. It is like cleaning your room: you throw things outside, and they appear on the sidewalk, and that is making. Each mind suffers its obsessions, its fixed ideas, and then comes the ritual called making, to bury them, or to tie them to something that would pull them away. As an artist, making is what determines my place in the collective madness called 'society'. Making for me also means a self-fulfilling prophecy, which is supposed to trigger events. Am I trying to tell someone something? This year I'm saying: 'Be lost' to everyone.

How to consume art?
The most efficient consumption of art is when it's unintentionally ignored, so that it could be perceived unconsciously. The most affected by art are those who ignore it. It is not like consuming beauty or cleverness. Wear it as cloth, and if you can't move it, stand next to it and make sure that it wears you(r attention). In the optimum situation you need two people, one to look and one to look at the one looking. Put yourself in front of it and try to think of something else, if you have someone to talk with, it's even better. For the senses, we have filters which help us perceive in a specific form of attention. It is not a desirable visual commodity; it is not something unseen, just a therapeutic device. It requires a lifetime relationship, inviting a constant shift in the form of attention invested into it - pick it, put it in your mouth, climb it, hide it, hide something behind it. But if it's a glass, look at it with one eye closed for almost an hour.

What function has (had) writing (the thesis) in your artistic process?
We live in countries, each country is governed by law, the law is language, the Thesis is language. The Thesis teaches me that I'm governed by language. And my work will be judged by the words I'm able to put next to it. It also taught me that, blind people and animals should be able to enjoy visual art just as anyone else.

Which one of your fellow graduating students has in your opinion experienced the most remarkable development during his/her stay at the Frank Mohr Institute, and why?
This could be determined only after the execution of the tournament which I'm organizing now. The winner will hold the title: 'The Best Artist in the Netherlands'. Every fellow student will participate, so if there's any remarkable development, it is the one of The Best Artist, who is expected to eliminate all his/her opponents and win the title. It will be only one; at the end there should be only one artist who survives.