Kalina Nedelcheva

Dynamic Thought Articulation

Dynamic Thought Articulation (DTA) is a form of experimental mapping, sensing, and tracing that I developed during my MFA thesis to explain what transpires in encounters with artworks and to identify possible avenues for collective meaning-making. As a practice, DTA visualizes spaces of in-betweeness and is concerned with the interstices of exhibition displays. This work was awarded with the Thesis Medal from OCAD University in Toronto, Canada. DTA relies on embodied memories, familiarity and recognition, and the positionality of viewers. The mapping subject focuses on their experience with displayed artwork(s) and contemplates the transferential exchange of pluriversal currents in the Third Space—the interstice of local articulations, non-knowledge, and not-yet-knowns. The Third Space is what artworks and viewers hold in common. My MFA thesis outlined some very important attributes for spectatorship in the spirit of decolonial intersubjectivity, highlighting the instability of signs, the currents of meaning-making in institutional settings, and the importance of cultural difference articulated in the interstice. Dynamic Thought Articulation operates on the premise that thought is always fleeting, but that even the most transient impressions generally point to the vicinity of something important and worth exploring. Engaging in this mental mapping exercise, viewers identify objects of interest and the intersubjective relational structures that are generated through the encounter. The goal is to tease out elements that arise interest or revelation—whether through recognition, general familiarity, or even unexplainable infatuation. Through a visualized experience that denotes points of interest in the work and the feelings/memories that arise in response, the viewer has the opportunity to re-enact the Third Space for themselves on paper—incompletely, of course, for the site is too elusive for any accurate concrete representation. One reflects on the bigger picture, gaining understanding of different embodied factors that influenced their reading. On this page, you will find some examples of my mental maps. Some of them articulate my process of arriving at meaning in response to a particular piece, while others showcase my theorization of how exhibitions are structured like a language. DTA is flexible as it can be displayed as illustration and even as a participatory gallery intervention.