Vera Barkalova (b. 1990) is a Moscow-based artist working with photography, video, sculpture, and installation. In her work, Barkalova explores the corporal and the spiritual through making sense of contemporary rituals and practices and connecting them with a larger tradition.
Recommended by Elena Anosova
From the Ritualism project. In this series, Barkalova explores new rituals of the contemporary world and ties them with the tradition of eternal resurrection and cyclical time
From the Ritualism project. Although Barkalova is working with visual patterns specific to Russian culture, she finds the foundation of ritualism to be shared by all traditions
From the Ritualism project
From the Manifest project. This portrait series explores the generation of people who were born and raised in the post-Soviet era of supposed freedom and cosmopolitism
From the Manifest project. Barkalova is interested in transformations of the Russian society as seen by this generation and the internal and external challenges they face
From the Manifest project
From the Consumerist Society series. The object of the photograph is abandoned by humans and taken by soil and space; it is found in the moment of burial
From the Consumerist Society series
Love Me, 2000. Found archive, author unknown. A collection of photos becomes an archive of the body and of the aesthetics of the 90s in Russia
Love Me, 2000
Fading Beauty project explores the aspects of “beauty” in depictions of people through the centuries until today. Its goal is to embody the fading beauty, extinction of life, and to fix the spectator’s aesthetical reflex
From the Fading Beauty project
Fading Beauty: Intervention. The photographs were placed in a public space to give the viewers a chance to decide for themselves whether they wanted to see it or not
Fading Beauty: Intervention. Physically, the image begins to dissolve outside the train window, escaping the gaze of a person immersed in their own world and having the opportunity to grasp an image only fleetingly
Fading Beauty: Intervention. Most of the works were removed immediately by railway workers, and some remained for a week
