Put Your Slippers On, You Are Going to Catch a Cold

This project is about my grandmother Mara’s assimilation into Canadian life while very much remaining Bulgarian. Coming to Canada at an elderly age, she managed to create a community in her new adopted land despite not speaking the language and having very different cultural references. She has always found ways to connect with people, whether is through food, laughter or caring for others. We had a great time working together. I would paint the abstract watercolor drawings and she would write on them in her old fashioned handwriting in pen and ink. The words came from her, pure and most of them hard to translate into English. Similarly to Julia Warhol, who never really understood her son’s work but fully supported him through unconditional love, my grandmother has always tried to understand me in this foreign world of art, performance, and language that I exist in. The digital drawings were created by scanning the many notes my grandmother leaves behind when she visits my apartment. They are everywhere, in my fridge covering a dessert she brought, on the kitchen table, sometimes in my drawers.

Put Your Slippers on, You are Going to Catch a Cold is a project about dialogue, family and communication beyond language.

Biliana Velkova and Mara Duylgerova 2007