BG · EN
We.
We are Boris and Michaela.
We have worked together for more than ten years. We both graduated in Scenography from the National Academy of Arts. We founded Sapromat in 2019, as a continuation of our shared interest in space and in the collaborative process in the visual arts.
Photography: Radina Gancheva
Michaela Dobreva and Boris Dalchev
Photography: Yana Lozeva
THE COLLECTIVE
Set design, installation,
visual performance
Founded 2019 · Sofia
The Sapromat collective works with a site-specific approach — every piece begins from a particular place, settling into the architecture and the surroundings and opening new points of view onto the familiar. Space is used in this way as material for a visual dramaturgical structure, and objects take on unsuspected “abilities”. Viewers are invited to examine their own interaction with the work and to become active participants in it. The collective works in many directions and in a range of formats — artistic research, objects, installation, performance, interventions in the urban environment, digital techniques. Literary and dramatic works are to a large extent the leading conceptual inspiration for the duo. Collaboration with artists from other disciplines, and co-authorship, are a guiding principle of Sapromat’s practice.
The beginning beyond the theatre stage is the exhibition Unapparent (2019) at the UniArt Gallery of the New Bulgarian University. Since then the collective has developed installations, visual performances and immersive productions: 0 (zero) (2019), Phantasm (2020), Invisible Cities (2021), Tales of the Bizarre (2022), The Other Dream (2023) and Inter-block Wanderings (2023–2024).
Phantasm and Invisible Cities have been nominated for the Ikar Awards of the Union of Bulgarian Actors.
Michaela Dobreva
Set designer · co-founder
Michaela Dobreva teaches computer animation in the Scenography department of the National Academy of Arts and is a doctoral candidate in Digital Arts. She holds a master’s degree in Scenography and has worked on more than 20 theatre and dance productions. Her main interests lie in interactive and site-specific art. Together with Boris Dalchev she founded the Sapromat association. She is a curator of the festival 180 Degrees — Laboratory for Innovative Art. In 2025 she became vice-chair of the Association of Scenographers in Bulgaria. Together with Boris Dalchev she received the Ikar Award 2026 for Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead at the National Theatre.
Boris Dalchev
Set designer · co-founder
Boris Dalchev is a set and costume designer with more than 45 productions and performances behind him. He has worked in theatres in Sofia and across the country, and has shown drawings and illustrations in solo and group exhibitions. Together with Michaela Dobreva he founded the Sapromat association. Dalchev has twice been nominated for set design at the national Ikar Awards, and in 2024 he won an Ikar with Kancho Kasabov (costumes) for their work on The Hague, directed by Galin Stoev. He holds a certificate of merit from the Ministry of Culture for his contribution to Bulgarian culture (2021). Together with Michaela Dobreva he received the Ikar Award 2026 for Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead at the National Theatre. In 2025 he joined the board of the Association of Scenographers in Bulgaria. Boris Dalchev defended a doctorate in the Scenography department of the National Academy of Arts, where he is currently a chief assistant professor.
PRESS
Articles, interviews and
announcements about Sapromat
(most of them in Bulgarian)
Sapromat Association — profile
Open Art Files
Michaela Dobreva and Boris Dalchev of Sapromat: We have ideas for theatre outside the theatre
Jasmin.bg, Marina Delivlaeva, 22 November 2020
Sapromat — art for an environment without borders
Kultura.bg — Portal for Culture, Art and Society, Rosena Ivanova, 5 July 2021
Performing arts: Michaela Dobreva and Boris Dalchev of the Sapromat association
Capital, “Rising Stars. Class of 2022”, Svetoslav Todorov and Tamara Valcheva, 18–24 February 2022 (PDF, in Bulgarian)
Art and the Young — a conversation with the set designers Boris Dalchev and Michaela Dobreva
Bulgarian National Television, Kultura.BG, Daniela Lalova, 8 March 2022
PRESS KIT
Materials for media, PDF
Press kit in English (PDF)
2 pages · September 2026 edition
Прес кит на български (PDF)
2 pages · September 2026 edition (in Bulgarian)