Biography
Ilina Koralova is an art historian and a freelance curator and project manager, director of Future of Europe Association of Contemporary Art Leipzig, as well as a visiting lecturer at the Academy of Fine Arts also in Leipzig.
In 1998 she earned her Master’s degree in Art History from the National Academy of Art in Sofia, and in 2001 she completed the De Appel Curatorial Training Programme in Amsterdam.
Between 2002 and 2012, she worked as a curator at the Gallery of Contemporary Art Leipzig (Galerie für Zeitgenössische Kunst – GfZK Leipzig). In 2015, on behalf of ifa (Institute for International Relations), Stuttgart, she took charge of the organization of the German Pavilion at the Venice Biennale. Between 2012 and 2013, she coordinated the international project Europe (to the power of) n — a large-scale initiative by the Goethe-Institut London, comprising a series of exhibitions presented across seven European countries and in China.
In addition to the projects she realized at the Gallery of Contemporary Art Leipzig, Ilina Koralova has curated numerous international events presented in Sofia and Plovdiv (Bulgaria), as well as in Dresden, Augsburg, and Munich (Germany), Graz (Austria), Slovenj Gradec (Slovenia), and Lyon (France).
In her curatorial practice, Koralova focuses on themes such as identity, and cultural belonging, explored through the lens of migration, borders, and social anxieties. Exhibitions such as Migrations of Fear (23rd Week of Contemporary Art, Plovdiv, 2017), Art. No Borders. Plovdiv. (25th Week of Contemporary Art, Plovdiv, 2019), and What Connects Us (SAMCA, 2025) reflect her understanding of art as a social and cultural mediator. Her projects are collective and dialogical processes, creating spaces for social engagement and conversation.
Gallery
group exhibition
What Conncets Us, 2025.
Installation
Details
- Photographer: personal archive Ilina Koralova
- Description: The exhibition, What Connects Us, is a kind of ‘still frame’, an attempt—without claiming to be comprehensive—to capture contemporary trends in the society-food-art chain. The attention of the artists in the exhibition is largely directed towards the ‘symbolic’ potential of food, to its ability to be a starting point for (critical) observation and analysis of social processes and reflection on their history and present, but also to its possibilities to be a source of inspiration for the development of individual artistic concepts and practices.
- Copyright: All the artists for their art works
Ilina Koralova for the curator
Daniela Kostova
Storms, A Park, Princesses with Hair Rollers, 2021.
Installation
Details
- Photographer: Boris Missirkov
- Description: Solo exhibition by Daniela Kostova
With a hint of irony, Storms, Park and Princesses with Hair Rollers reflects the paradoxes of (self-)isolation and the realization of how important social contact is, as well as (self-) restrictions and the growing desire to remove them. In a broader context, Daniela Kostova explores the limits of what is allowed and the consequences of crossing those lines, the interaction between order and chaos and how they feed off each other. - Copyright: Daniela Kostova - artist
Ilina Koralova - curator - References: https://structura.gallery/en/exhibitions/storms-park-and-princesses-with-hair-rollers/
https://danielakostova.com/
Delphine Reist
Art. No Borders. Plovdiv., 2019.
Installation
Details
- Photographer: Stoyan Iliev
- Material: metal buckets, oiled concrete
- Description: Art. No Borders. Plovdiv. presents internationally recognized artists from Europe, the USA, and Japan whose works deal with questions of our existence in the present day: who are we, the people of the 21st century; where are we going; and are we able to sacrifice some of our present comfort in order to preserve civilization for future generations? The exhibition focuses on three interconnected themes: the growing consumption that drains natural resources and how this leads to economic and political crises; the ever more frequent environmental disasters that have become a constant threat for humanity; and the fragility of human life, as well as that of the planet.
The central theme – and the starting point for the exhibition – is, of course, the art itself and its indisputable capacity to touch us emotionally and intellectually. - Copyright: Delphine Reist - artist
Ilina Koralova & Emil Mirazchiev - curators - References: https://week2019.arttoday.org/en
group exhibition
Migrations of Fear, 2017.
Installation
Details
- Photographer: Tomo Jeseničnik
- Property of: KGLU Slovenj Gradec
- Description: MIGRATIONS OF FEAR searches for answers by inviting аrtists from Germany, Austria, Bulgaria and Slovenia, as well as from Bosnia & Herzegovina, and Kosovo вхо present different concepts and viewpoints on the fears of the contemporary society, such as the fear of the unknown/foreign/different; fear of the loss of social status, fear of poverty; fear of the loss of basic freedoms. Fear is examined as a social and political phenomenon, as well as in its very subjective forms, as part of the individual’s very existence.
- Copyright: Ilina Koralova & Boris Kostadinov - for the curators
all the artists for their artworks
group exhibition
Passage, 2016.
Installation
Details
- Photographer: Stefan Fischer
- Property of: Ilina Koralova
- Description: PASSAGE indicates a process of crossing boundaries, which takes place not only in a physical sense but also symbolically – in the work of art. Formal rules of painting, photography and sculpture are challenged, elements from various forms of media are appropriated and newly defined. However, together with the notion of movement PASSAGE relates also to a moment of transition between two points or conditions. It could suggest certain instability, which demands taking a decision in which way to go.
- Copyright: Ilina Koralova for the curator
all the artists for the art works