Snow in the middle of summer, a carpet featuring hailstones, an AI fireplace and a series of other unconventional “exhibits” transformed the Regional Ethnographic Museum in Plovdiv into a stage for contemporary art over the past two months. Thousands of visitors came to see the art installation “Pseudonature 2.0”, which raises questions about nature, technology and humanity’s impact on the world around us.

“Pseudonature 2.0 has found its place, its home in Plovdiv. It turned out even better here than in Venice,” said architect Yasen Markov, the creator of the provocative project, during the exhibition’s official closing ceremony at the museum last night.

For two months, the Regional Ethnographic Museum – Plovdiv demonstrated that museum spaces traditionally associated with cultural heritage can also be adapted to contemporary art. The museum’s interior and courtyard became a kind of laboratory, where unconventional installations invited visitors to reflect on climate change, order and chaos, overdevelopment, artificial intelligence, and the place of modern humanity amid these rapidly changing phenomena.

The snow installation attracted particular attention, turning a summer day into a winter scene. “Thousands of people came to see the snow machine, which provokes reflection and raises questions about the relationship between humans and nature, as well as the actions—or inaction—of people that lead to disasters, natural anomalies and other unusual phenomena in the world around us,” said the museum’s director, Assoc. Prof. Dr. Angel Yankov. The exact number of visitors is yet to be calculated, but the project has clearly attracted considerable public interest.

The snow proved especially popular with the youngest visitors. Children delighted in the unusual spectacle, while many adults also allowed themselves to become children again for a moment, letting their imaginations run free. Behind the fun, however, lies a more serious question: what happens when natural phenomena that we take for granted begin to change as a result of human activity?

The message proved particularly relevant during a summer marked by extreme weather events—including storms, heatwaves, hailstorms, wildfires and floods. According to the project team, these events demonstrate that the climate crisis is much more real and much closer to us than we would like to believe.

PSEUDONATURE represented Bulgaria at the 19th International Architecture Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia in 2025 and was realized with the support of the Bulgarian Ministry of Culture. PSEUDONATURE 2.0 is the project’s first exclusive presentation following its appearance in Venice and was realized in partnership with architect Yasen Markov’s team and the Regional Ethnographic Museum – Plovdiv, with financial support from the Plovdiv 2019 Municipal Foundation.

The final opportunity to see snow in the museum courtyard in the middle of summer will be on August 15. After that, the snow will melt and the installations will be dismantled—but the questions raised by “Pseudonature 2.0” about the role of architecture, technology and our own influence on nature will remain.