Svetlana Kuyumdzhieva is an art historian, critic and curator. One of the most recognizable representatives of the contemporary art scene in Bulgaria. She has been working as a galerist and has emerged as an active critic and author of independent projects. She has extensive experience in exhibition making, working on festivals and events in public space. She attended curatorial trainings in the USA and South Korea. She also participated in conferences and residencies in Belgrade, Skopje, Berlin, Vienna, Paris. She is one of the founders of the first independent curators association in Bulgaria.
Her interests as an art theoretician encompass both the most up-to-date artists and trends in the art scene, as well as the period of the 1950s and 1960s and the problems of socialist realism.
Svetlana Kuyumdzhieva has 10-years’ experience in working as the chief curator of one of Sofia’s most reputable non-commercial art spaces. She worked as a senior expert at the State Institute for Culture – an Associate to the Bulgarian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and later as an chief expert at the Cultural deparment of Plovdiv Municipality, where she actively participated in the final stage of the bid for the title as European Capital of Culture and the preparation of the Cultural Strategy for 2014 - 2024. Since 2015 she has been the artistic director of Plovdiv 2019.