IvanovStoeva
Dimo Ivanov & Sonya Stoeva
About the Artists
IvanovStoeva’s collaborative work took shape in 2010 under the name Ivanov Stoeva, following several joint projects in Canada and Europe. Dimo Ivanov and Sonya Stoeva completed their Master's degrees in Intermedia (Video, Performance, and Electronic Arts) at Concordia University, Montreal, in 2022. They specialized in Leadership in Environmental and Digital Innovation for Sustainability (LEADS). Their research has received support through various scholarships and bursaries, including from the Canada Council, the Conseil des Arts et desLettres du Québec, the City of Montreal, the FRQSC Master's Research Scholarship (2019–2020), and the Hexagram Network for research and creation. The duo also received the FOFA Award for Excellence in Visual Arts and the Dora and Avi Morrow Award for Excellence.
They have exhibited their work in galleries and artist-run centers in Chicoutimi, Montreal, Quebec City, Toronto, Paris, and Sofia, as well as at art festivals such as the Elektra International Digital Art Festival (BIAN) and the Art Souterrain Contemporary Art Festival. Currently, they are exploring a perceptive approach to ecology. Their compositions evoke a "new nature," where texture and form are inspired by the natural world. Organic shapes and tactile surfaces blend to highlight the interconnectedness of all elements. These installations reflect the dynamic, ever-changing qualities of nature, encouraging viewers to engage with the work in a sensory, fragmented way—much like the natural ecosystems they aim to represent.
Still from Aquaplastique, by IvanovStoeva and Alex Cho
Aquaplastique
By IvanovStoeva and Alex Cho
Work presented at Bouclair from April 27th to June 8th
We explore a submerged world where aquatic flora, often relegated to the margins of our perception, unfolds in striking structural complexity. Selected for their almost unreal forms, these plants flirt with abstraction—as if nature itself had been contaminated by a digital imagination. Their flexible lines, organic volumes, and ability to metamorphose according to the currents are reminiscent of algorithm-generated architectures. This formal proximity between the living and the virtual raises a fertile tension: where does the natural end and simulation begin?
In this murky space, we offer a new reading of these often invisible organisms. Yet aquatic flora is one of the most powerful silent forces in the biosphere, essential for carbon (CO₂) sequestration and therefore for climate balance. Its structural vitality and functional elasticity make it a model of adaptation in the face of ecological upheaval. But in the collective imagination, it remains frozen, motionless, without presence.
By reconfiguring the relationship between the human gaze, the aquatic environment, and the virtual universe, our work seeks to restore these plants to their active and evolving dimension. Through an aesthetic hybridization—between biological observation, digital modeling, and visual experimentation—we create tension between the organic and the simulated. The virtual then becomes a revealer, a distorting mirror that amplifies the characteristics of a changing reality.
IvanovStoeva invites you to contemplate aquatic flora: an encounter between the invisible and the intelligible, where the digital imagination illuminates the adaptive beauty of a submerged world.
