deyana stareva

The Consulate for Other Species is a participatory installation exploring how other beings might be included, represented, and granted agency within our social systems. Developed during the Das Konsulat residency, the project is grounded in co-creation: over 36 participants from Stuttgart aged 16-40 contributed ideas, stories, and visions through collaborative workshops. 

An installation brings these shared ideas into a physical space. A 20-meter blue felt piece, hand-drawn with text fragments, collects memories from the workshops and guides visitors through collective imagination. A calm soundscape mixes animal voices with forest recordings from Europe and Brazil, helping visitors step into other perspectives. In a small reading area, four booklets turn workshop exercises into short stories about identity, belonging, and multispecies relations.

Together, these elements form a living consulate where human and non-human narratives coexist and invite ongoing participation.

Co-created with Jaione Cerrato

Shared Grounds is a site-specific, participatory workshop that explores and reimagines Sofia as a shared living space through role-play and collective creation.

Developed within the framework of Opera Ecologica, the project invites participants to engage with the botanical garden as a common ground where human and more-than-human presences coexist and co-create.

Drawing from Bulgarian mythology, the workshop activates animals, plants, and natural forces as roles to inhabit. These roles guide us in visioning Sofia as a shared home: a layered urban space where human and more-than-human presences actively participate in shaping what it means to live together. The workshop culminates in a collective installation that reflects the shared habitation.

The title Shared Grounds speaks to a living ecosystem where humans and more-than-human beings shape the environment in harmony.

Co-created with Jaione Cerrato