Les Fleurs de merde, 2025
"Tu m’as donné ta boue et j’en ai fait de l’or."
— Charles Baudelaire
I practiced photography for a long time. Now I can say that I live in photography and photography lives in me; this is no metaphor — my body has become a laboratory for producing photographic material. The photography created in the "darkroom" of my digestive tract has become an extension of my body.
The flowers — synthetic images conjured by a machine, they take form through a profoundly human material, in every sense of the expression. At the heart of this approach lies an idea drawn from Georges Bataille: everything that appears elevated, noble, or ideal depends on a base matter, rejected and ordinarily concealed by culture. Working on this piece, I came to understand that the high and the low are human constructions. In the world, as in the human body, everything can be beautiful, even the most hidden matter.
— Charles Baudelaire
I practiced photography for a long time. Now I can say that I live in photography and photography lives in me; this is no metaphor — my body has become a laboratory for producing photographic material. The photography created in the "darkroom" of my digestive tract has become an extension of my body.
The flowers — synthetic images conjured by a machine, they take form through a profoundly human material, in every sense of the expression. At the heart of this approach lies an idea drawn from Georges Bataille: everything that appears elevated, noble, or ideal depends on a base matter, rejected and ordinarily concealed by culture. Working on this piece, I came to understand that the high and the low are human constructions. In the world, as in the human body, everything can be beautiful, even the most hidden matter.
I use my own blood as a photosensitive material to take photographs as part of a process of bearing witness
to the crimes and atrocities committed by Russia in Ukraine. One day, while searching for images on the Internet, I came across the portrait of a murdered woman who had the same name as mine. She was about my age. Through the screen, a sister was looking at me. It was the encounter of the artist with the victim, an attempt to link my blood to that of all those broken lives.
to the crimes and atrocities committed by Russia in Ukraine. One day, while searching for images on the Internet, I came across the portrait of a murdered woman who had the same name as mine. She was about my age. Through the screen, a sister was looking at me. It was the encounter of the artist with the victim, an attempt to link my blood to that of all those broken lives.
Every spring, billions of flowers are planted across the streets and squares of Moscow, especially around government and law-enforcement buildings. This floral façade is meant to project calm and security. In the summer of 2020, I picked flowers growing near these institutions, extracted pigment from their petals, and printed portraits of political prisoners with it. Each portrait takes on the colors of the flowerbed it came from, mostly soft pinks and lilacs.
These prints are fragile and will fade over time, echoing how quickly these people disappear from public memory. Across the globe, from Belarus and Myanmar to Cuba and Iran, totalitarian regimes use the same tactic: masking systemic violence behind beautiful, orderly, and impenetrable facades. The fading portraits are a quiet reminder against the collective forgetting that autocrats everywhere rely on.
These prints are fragile and will fade over time, echoing how quickly these people disappear from public memory. Across the globe, from Belarus and Myanmar to Cuba and Iran, totalitarian regimes use the same tactic: masking systemic violence behind beautiful, orderly, and impenetrable facades. The fading portraits are a quiet reminder against the collective forgetting that autocrats everywhere rely on.
Same blood, 2023
Blooming garden
Temporal photography, 2016 —
Eternal cities, 2006 —
Photographs we are used to are mostly made using really short exposure time. Human visual system doesn’t allow us to distinguish such short moments as photographic camera easily does with it’s 1/30 or 1/250 or 1/1000 shutter speed. The goal of our project is to bring photographic vision closer to human vision by embedding temporality in it. Visually time could be defined through motion, which appears unsharp and blurry in photographs made using simple long exposures.
In our work moving or changing objects are shown sharp and clear, and unchanged areas are on a contrary blurry. For that purpose we are using soft-ware called TIMETRACE.
Dedicated to Eadweard Muybridge (1830−1904) and Etienne-Jules Marey (1830−1904),
the founders of chronophotography, who understood time so well that they managed to be born and to die almost at the same moment.
In our work moving or changing objects are shown sharp and clear, and unchanged areas are on a contrary blurry. For that purpose we are using soft-ware called TIMETRACE.
Dedicated to Eadweard Muybridge (1830−1904) and Etienne-Jules Marey (1830−1904),
the founders of chronophotography, who understood time so well that they managed to be born and to die almost at the same moment.
Pinhole
«Eternal cities remain on the planet: Paris, Prague, Krakow, Budapest, Cologne, Berlin, Rome, St. Petersburg. They survived Robespierre, the Commune, the communists, and Hitler.
They are untouched and imperishable».
Valeria Novodvorskaya
«Eternal cities remain on the planet: Paris, Prague, Krakow, Budapest, Cologne, Berlin, Rome, St. Petersburg. They survived Robespierre, the Commune, the communists, and Hitler.
They are untouched and imperishable».
Valeria Novodvorskaya
Raitsentr, 2009 — 2011
Forest, 2011 — 2015
A raitsentr (a district center — a small town or settlement) in Russian sounds like «the center of Paradise». During the time I worked on this project, most of the people depicted in these photographs died from alcoholism. For many decades, alcoholism was the main cause of premature mortality in the Russian provinces.
Pinhole
For all nations that can formulate their relation to the forest, the latter has never been simply a zone of dense vegetation. The forest beckons and entices. As we know from fairy-tales, the forest can be munificent… or it can kill. Countless myths, legends and superstitions are connected with the forest. The forest is a mystery, a place of power and a sacred domain. Perhaps we attribute such qualities to the forest, because its dark and desolate thickets and its luminous meadows resemble the inner world of man. Like the latter, the forest is full of secrets and contradictions.
Perhaps we are this forest ourselves? A forest without boundaries, where happiness can turn into tragedy, grief into hope, despair into love, the sacred into the vile, and doom into… salvation. This forest is infinite, without beginning or end.
For all nations that can formulate their relation to the forest, the latter has never been simply a zone of dense vegetation. The forest beckons and entices. As we know from fairy-tales, the forest can be munificent… or it can kill. Countless myths, legends and superstitions are connected with the forest. The forest is a mystery, a place of power and a sacred domain. Perhaps we attribute such qualities to the forest, because its dark and desolate thickets and its luminous meadows resemble the inner world of man. Like the latter, the forest is full of secrets and contradictions.
Perhaps we are this forest ourselves? A forest without boundaries, where happiness can turn into tragedy, grief into hope, despair into love, the sacred into the vile, and doom into… salvation. This forest is infinite, without beginning or end.
Autoportraites, 2003
My childhood home, 2002
Street photos,
сolour,
1993 — 2010
сolour,
1993 — 2010
Friday, 2012
Street photos, b/w film,
1991 — 2000
1991 — 2000
This project was filmed in a courtyard in central Moscow — an ordinary place at first glance, with a mosque hidden behind residential buildings. But when Friday comes, everything changes. I’m not drawing conclusions; I was simply captivated by the shadows on the snow — a mysterious Islamic pattern appearing in the winter.
Les Fleurs de merde, 2025
I practiced photography for a long time. Now I can say that I live
in photography and photography lives in me; this is no metaphor — my body has become a laboratory for producing photographic material. Show more
See all photos in photography and photography lives in me; this is no metaphor — my body has become a laboratory for producing photographic material. Show more
Same blood, 2023
I use my own blood as a photosensitive material to take photographs as part of a process
of bearing witness to the crimes
and atrocities committed by Russia in Ukraine. Show more
See all photos of bearing witness to the crimes
and atrocities committed by Russia in Ukraine. Show more
Blooming garden
Every spring, billions of flowers are planted across streets and squares of Moscow, especially around government and law-enforcement buildings. This floral façade is meant to project calm and security. Show more
See all photos Temporal photography, 2016 —
Photographs we are used to are mostly made using really short exposure time. Human visual system doesn’t allow us to distinguish such short moments as photographic camera easily does with it’s 1/30
or 1/250 or 1/1000 shutter speed. Show more
See all photos or 1/250 or 1/1000 shutter speed. Show more
Eternal cities, 2006 —
Pinhole
«Eternal cities remain on the planet: Paris, Prague, Krakow, Budapest, Cologne, Berlin, Rome, St. Petersburg. They survived Robespierre, the Commune,
the communists, and Hitler.
They are untouched and imperishable.»
Valeria Novodvorskaya
See all photos «Eternal cities remain on the planet: Paris, Prague, Krakow, Budapest, Cologne, Berlin, Rome, St. Petersburg. They survived Robespierre, the Commune,
the communists, and Hitler.
They are untouched and imperishable.»
Valeria Novodvorskaya
Raitsentr, 2009 — 2011 (expance and angels)
Pinhole
A raitsentr (a district center — a small town or settlement) in Russian sounds like ‘the center of Paradise.’ During the time I worked on this project, most of the people depicted in these photographs died from alcoholism. For many decades, alcoholism was the main cause of premature mortality in the Russian provinces.
See all photos A raitsentr (a district center — a small town or settlement) in Russian sounds like ‘the center of Paradise.’ During the time I worked on this project, most of the people depicted in these photographs died from alcoholism. For many decades, alcoholism was the main cause of premature mortality in the Russian provinces.
Raitsentr, 2009 — 2011 (drinkers)
See all photos Forest, 2011 — 2015
Pinhole
For all nations that can formulate their relation to the forest , the latter has never been simply a zone of dense vegetation. The forest beckons and entices. Show more
See all photos For all nations that can formulate their relation to the forest , the latter has never been simply a zone of dense vegetation. The forest beckons and entices. Show more
Autoportraites, 2003
See all photos My childhood home, 2002
See all photos Street photos, сolour,
1993 — 2010
See all photos 1993 — 2010
Street photos, b/w film,
1991 — 2000
See all photos 1991 — 2000
Friday, 2012
This project was filmed in a courtyard in central Moscow — an ordinary place at first glance, with a mosque hidden behind residential buildings. But when Friday comes, everything changes. I’m not drawing conclusions; I was simply captivated by the shadows on the snow — a mysterious Islamic pattern appearing in the winter.
See all photos Contact me:
+33 7 49 72 18 47
lusazinchenko@gmail.com
Paris, France
Paris, France
