Stefan Kartchev

Trained as a fashion designer in Antwerp, Stefan Kartchev (1990, Bulgaria) has worked in the industry in roles spanning from design to development and production. His practice moves fluidly across fields, including fashion, costume, and spatial design and intersecting with performative interventions. In the present, he focuses on the generative synergy that sparks when diverse makers converge, creating collaborative work that surprises, transforms, and moves beyond individual practice. He engages contemporary artists and craftspeople rooted in traditional practices, creating collaborative spaces where new, hybrid worlds emerge. Slower, craft-based processes bring depth and focus, offering a counterpoint to a fast-paced creative industry.

At MORPHO, Stefan will continue developing 'Through a Phantom Step..', a project that began in 2022, revisiting traditional crafts through a contemporary, deconstructed lens. Rooted in collaborations with senior craftsmakers from his native Bulgaria and international artists, the research uses play as a method of expansion: slowing down, scaling up, distorting, and reordering inherited gestures linked to ancestors. Opening space for research and experimentation into sculptural and installation forms activated through movement, engaging space, sound, and collaborative negotiations. Questions around memory, transmission, and heritage shape the work, aiming to release ingrained patterns, materialise unseen processes, and open paths to new forms of expression.

Stefan has collaborated with artists including Rafał Zajko, Gaëtan Rusquet, Every Island, Alessandro Cugola, Benjamin Abel Meirhaeghe, Mooni Van Tichel, Albina Vakhitova, and Michele Rizzo. Residencies include 'Artisanal Intelligence' by Knotto (JP), 'Manus x Machina' by NOoF (NL), and MAD Brussels (BE). His contributions to projects have been presented nationally at Bozar, STUK, Beursschouwburg, OBV, Toneelhuis, KVS, Cas-Co, BUDA, and La Balsamine, and internationally at Mudam and Casino Luxembourg, La Quadriennale di Roma, DDW (NL) and Focal Point Gallery (UK). After earning his MA in Fashion, he has
worked with Walter Van Beirendonck, Y-PxJPG, Radd Lounge, Rombaut, Coperni and Mutani.