“Cooltzine” vol.5, whose content and theme’s entirely defined by the participants, not Cooltsalon, is our biggest experiment in co-creation and co-authorship. The zine will be available on 12 May.

Back in January 2022, we launched an Open Call for participation where the curator (Cooltsalon) became the creative contributor, and the co-creators (the confirmed participants) curated the content. We offered the participants 50 loose pieces – files of photos, illustrations, sketches – which they were to use as building blocks in their pages. Participants had the freedom to “remix” works, working with the source files but making alterations to them, putting multiple ones together as a collage, cutting, overlaying, or adding own material.

5 international participants embarked on this most experimental of all the “Cooltzine” editions:

Ana Lagidze is a doctor of architecture and textile designer, based in Tbilisi, Georgia. She works at the University of Georgia as an Assistant Professor and Lecturer, Senior Curator of the Culturally Arts Collective Washington US State, Art Advisor NFT Art Switzerland, Online Art tutor in Singapore. She participates in international art projects in different countries.

Daria Tchapanova is a visual artist and researcher, based in Vienna, Austria. She works with a range of media and methods, including installations, video, photography, collage and graphics. Currently, she’s engaging with art and anthropology, and exploring new ways of creation, especially through lens-based
projects.

Negar Ebrahimi is an architect and a consultant in urban studies with a MSc from The Bartlett School of Architecture. Currently, she is completing her PhD in Architecture while teaching at the University of Edinburgh. She was awarded multiple grants for her research e.g. Social Responsibility and Sustainability Award (UoE SRS) and her work has been exhibited in the London Festival of Architecture and at the Royal Scottish academy of Art and Architecture.

Pramod Gupta is a visual designer based in Lucknow, India. He designs works that are easy to understand and beautiful to look at, and believes in the power of elegant minimalism in a world increasingly saturated with garish colour. On weekends he does illustrations.

Zsófi Kozma is a visual artist and costume designer, whose work is highly related to her activism, and the topics that she believes in. Her main issues are womanhood, (eco)feminism, and the struggles between politics and an individual’s life. She is based in Budapest, but currently completing an exchange program in Helsinki.

The resulting zine will be available on 12 May 2022:

A limited print run of “Cooltzine” vol.5 will be available during the in-person event in Sofia.

A digital file will be available from 12 May to 12 June on our website.

“Cooltzine” vol.5 is also the last edition in the “Cootlzine” series and of this format.