I am a documentary filmmaker (director, producer, camera operator, editor, costume designer, set builder) with a background in art conservation, art history, museum studies, urban studies, and historical costume and textiles. These fields shaped my work in film, visual art, process art, and performance, and guided my interest in topics of creative process as catharsis and mode to restore personal agency, conservation and archiving as resistance, childhood wisdom, and stories from the Russian or Eastern European diaspora, particularly where they challenge assumptions or reveal overlooked histories.
After emigrating to the United States as a child and growing up in Williamsburg, Virginia, regular trips back to my hometown of Moscow strengthened my commitment to improving society through presenting nuanced perspectives, differing worldviews, and preserving the past as a form of activism.
I earned my BA in Art History at VCU in Richmond (2011) and graduated from Strelka Institute for Media, Architecture and Design in Moscow, Russia (2013), where I focused on local museums as avenues for positive change.
My studies in art history and conservation taught me how deeply artistic tools and technologies shape both artworks and their historical context. That training also showed me that understanding ephemeral and experiential art requires firsthand engagement with the materials and gestures behind it. Following the advice of my Russian textile conservation mentor, Sonya Martyanova, I turned to film, photography, and other media in 2012 to learn how these forms could preserve experience more authentically.
I incorporate principles learned in conservation in my work, engaged in a broader artistic research interest about the preservation of humanity's experiences and ephemera.
Over the past decade, I have pursued interdisciplinary work internationally, exploring how to “conserve” experiences and human connections through storytelling. This perspective has guided my collaborations and independent work across documentary films, narrative films, artist films, and installation documentation.
In following these threads, I hope to build bridges of understanding where they did not exist before, between people and between fields, creating spaces for authentic contact and meaningful ideas.
I am based in New Orleans, LA and Williamsburg, VA.