Maria Nalbantova (b. 1990, Sofia) is an artist working in the field of visual arts, using a variety of media and techniques such as drawing, collage, found objects, installation and video. Her practice explores the complex entanglements between human society and the environment, often with a site-specific focus that considers the historical, political, and social context of each location. She constructs speculative realities where real stories, facts, and interdisciplinary research intertwine with fiction and contemporary mythologies, centered around notions of care, trust, and responsibility.
Her works are included in the collections of the Sofia City Art Gallery, China International Culture Association, Contemporary Art Collection of the European Parliament, and various private collections.
In 2025, Maria Nalbantova took part in the “Silk Road: Artists’ Rendezvous – International Artists’ Silk Road Field Residency in China“. In 2024, she exhibited at viennacontemporary with Sarieva Gallery in Vienna, Austria, and was involved in the Art & Science Residency “FusionAIR 2024” in Bucharest, Romania, as well as the feralAIR program at Schmiede in Hallein, Austria. In early 2023 she was selected for the WaterLANDS Artistic Engagement Residency, funded by the EU Horizon program – a four-years project at Dragoman Marsh in Bulgaria, one of the six wetland Action Sites. She also participated in the Art Encounters Biennial in Timișoara, Romania, curated by Adrian Notz. In 2022, she participated in the Media Arts Festival “Schmiede” in Hallein, Austria. She was involved in two projects within the nomadic biennale Manifesta 14 in Prishtina, Kosovo – the group exhibition “Self-Splaining (Triumph of Empathy)” by the Institute of Contemporary Art – Sofia, as well as in the “Center for Narrative Practice” by invitation of the OGMS Gallery. As the winner of the 2020 BAZA Award for Contemporary Art, Bulgaria, she spent March and April 2022 as an artist in residence at Residency Unlimited in New York. In 2021, she won a scholarship to the International Summer Academy in Salzburg, Austria.
