Bio
Polina Polikarpova, born in Kharkiv, Ukraine. BA in the history of art from Kharkiv State Academy of Design and Arts. She is an independent photographer based in Kyiv working on both long-term personal projects and various photo assignments.
During the 2010s, combining the roles of photographer, stylist, and location manager in one person, Polina models images and scenes in the outskirts of her native Kharkiv, focusing on its local poetics, which reached its peak in "Pretty Ghetto" photo project, released as a photobook in 2025 by Osnovy Publishing.
Playing with fashion photography and using its tricks and clichés, the author creates her anthology of extravagant images and their endless mimicry of the environment. Polina discovers the aesthetic side of Ukrainian daily life and girlhood through decades, millennial childhood and escapism.
Currently, Polina is exploring escapism from a fresh perspective, drawing on her experience of civilian life in Kyiv since the start of russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, viewed through the lens of 2000s video game aesthetics.
self-portrait by Yaroslav Futymskyi
Selected group exhibitions
2023
2022
- Paysage présage / La Chambre, Strasbourg, France
- Reclaiming Agency: Ukrainian Women Photographers Today / Southern Utah Museum of Art, USA
- With a Chance of Precipitation (photo screening) / Recontres d’Arles, Arles, France
- Ukraine Moments / Innkai, Passau, Germany
- The Foreboding Landscape / OFF Piotrowkowska, Lodz, Poland
- In the name of Freedom (Ukrainian Women Photographers Organization) / Chaussee 36, Berlin
2021
2019
2017
2016
- Unknown / Yermilov-centre, Kharkiv, Ukraine
- Litoralis / Drukarnya cultural platform, Ivano-Frankivsk, Ukraine
- Odesa//Batumi Photo Days / Museum of Odesa Modern art
2014
- Festival TERRA FUTURA / Fabrika shopping mall. Kherson, Ukraine
- SeeMe Takeover / Time Square, NY City (projection on screen)
- After Yesterday (UPHA exhibition) / Tea Factory gallery, Odesa, Ukraine
- MOTHER / Doomed gallery, London, UK
2013
- Faceless, part II / Museum Quartier, Vienna, Austria (projection on screen)
- Days of apartment exhibitions / Sumskaya street 19, Kharkiv, Ukraine
Festivals
2022
2021
2020
2019
- Second biennial of the young art / Kharkiv, Ukraine
2018
- SlobodaCult / Uzhhorod-Mukachevo, Ukraine
2017
- Tetramatika / Lviv, Ukraine
- Krakow Photo Month: ShowOFF section
2016
- Porto Franco, visual program “Litoralis” / Ivano-Frankivsk, Ukraine
- Odesa//Batumi photo days / Odesa, Ukraine
2014
- Terra Futura / Kherson, Ukraine
Selected personal exhibitions
2022
2017
- Heart of the darkness / Hotel “Zakarpattya”, Uzhhorod, Ukraine
- 38 / Izone, Kyiv, Ukraine
2016
- 38 / Plast Art gallery, Chernihiv, Ukraine
- 38 / ComeIn gallery, Kharkiv, Ukraine
2015
- 38 / EastFOTO gallery, Grunweld, Germany
Selected residences
2021
- Ruda project / Kryvyi Rih, Ukraine
2017
- Sorry, we have no rooms available / Uzhhorod, Ukraine
- SWAP : UK/Ukraine / Liverpool, United Kingdom
- Perceived identities : to have or to be? / Kharkiv, Ukraine
2016
- Litoralis / Ivano-Frankivsk, Ukraine
Selected publications
Recognition
2021
2019
- Member of UPI collective (Ukrainian Photographic Institute)
2014
- Member of NSPAU (National Society of Photo Artists of Ukraine)
2013
- Scholarship nominal photographic grant named Alexey Ivanitskii (Kharkiv)
2011
- Member of UPHA (Ukrainian Photographic Alternative)