Stiliyana Minkovska is a qualified architect (ARB/RIBA), who practises across the wide intercourses of art, architectural, interior, product design and making.
She graduated from the Royal College of Art in 2016, where her dissertation was awarded with distinction. Her thesis project focused on pregnancy and childbirth, which was rooted in her personal experience as a young mother. The proposal looked at the deinstitutionalisation of birth, which occurs within the hospital environment in western societies, by turning the birthing mother from a medical object into a celebratory matriarchal reproductive economy through spatial qualities and design.
She qualified as an Architect in 2018 from the Bartlett School of Architecture, University College London.
She recently completed a residency programme with the Design Museum, where she advanced further the research she commenced at the RCA. She designed three progressive elements of offerings, which work around the comfort and wellbeing of the birthing mother. The immersive alternative childbirth environment called Ultima Thule was exhibited at the Design Museum, London from the 25th of January until July 2020.
Her interest in healthcare with particular emphasis in the maternity wards and the birth centres has also been reflected in her artwork. Most recently she exhibited a series of Erotic Kit for Internal Selfies to capture the antenatal and postnatal conditions of the maternal-female body as a place.
Her projects are narrative-based. She combines real scenarios with imaginary settings through thorough story-telling, which evoke macro questions from a micro sampling.
Projects
- Ultima ThuleUltima Thule is a project that interrogates the design landscape of childbirth within a hospital setting. The term Ultima Thule is derived from a Latin phrase meaning ‘a distant unknown region’ or ‘beyond the known world’. It also refers to a trans- Neptunian object compiled from data by NASA’s New Horizons team, composed of two planetesimals, nicknamed ‘Ultima’ and ‘Thule’ – they are joined together along their major axes. My own voyage into motherhood came into focus during childbirth, when
Work history
Designer in Residencethe Design Museum
- London, United KingdomPart Time
S
S
ArchitectSheppard Robson
- London, United KingdomFull Time
Skills
- Spatial Design
- Interior Design
- Set Design
- Product
- Architect
- Reasearch
- Developing Concepts
- Art Direction
- Architectural Drawing
Education
Master of Research (MRes) Design Royal College of Art
London, United Kingdom
MRes in Healthcare & Design (part-time course)
B
B
ARB/RIBA Part III Professional Practice and Practical ExperienceBartlett School of Architecture, UCL
- London, United Kingdom
+ Show more
Awards
Designers in Residencethe Design Museum
P
P
Mother Art PrizeProcreate Project / The Mother House Studios
Nomination / part of 20 artists exhibiting motherhood-related work at Mimosa House studio in Mayfair, London+ Show more