Sofia Pankevich (born Moscow). Graduated from the Moscow International Film School and the School of Photography and Multimedia. (workshop of Igor Mukhin). Works with experimental analog photography. According to the artist, she is often captured by objects that keep secrets, and it is her camera that helps her solve their secret. Lives and works in Moscow.
- 2019 – “Blurring the lines” shortlist
- 2018 – Winner of the Dior Photo Awards “Dior, the Art of Color”
Group exhibitions:
- 2021 – “Ways of communication” Pennlab, Moscow, Russia.
- 2020 – “Mes amours” Liza Fetissova gallery, Paris, France.
- 2019 – “Reminiscence”. Ostavinska Gallery. Belgrade, Serbia.
- 2019 – “Blind Spot”. Catherine’s Foundation. Moscow, Russia.
- 2018 – “Manifestation”. School of Photography and Multimedia. Rodchenko. Moscow, Russia.
- 2018 – “Class gathering”. Center for Contemporary Art “Winzavod”. Moscow, Russia.
- 2018 – “Dior, the Art of Color”. Grande halle. Arles, France.
- 2017 – “Self-portrait”. MMAM. Moscow, Russia.
- 2017 – “Center of the Latent Image”. Plant “Pluto”. Moscow, Russia.
All author's works
photo
series
A person’s mood is changeable and an emotional background can be extremely unstable; extreme psychological states can leave a vivid mark, but the memory of them is mediated by bodily sensations. When confronted with psychological problems, one seeks to talk about them, to comprehend and share one’s experiences, but is often confronted with a poor vocabulary. For Sonya Pankevich, photography becomes a means of enabling conversation about complex issues. While a person’s emotional repertoire is unique, poses and gestures can become a common point of convergence, offering both work with emotions and a way to talk about them. The project was based on a unique working method: first, the photographer talked to the participants and made notes and drew attention to key feelings. Then the notes were read aloud, and work with body memory began – the person chose the feeling he or she wanted to work on, to learn exactly how the body was behaving at that moment. The characters were filmed nude, literally embodying the metaphor of nudity as the ultimate frankness.
The refuge, or shelter, to which Sophia Pankevich’s series is dedicated, are vaults, niches and ledges formed by nature itself. Hiding in shadows and crevices, a person disappears and becomes part of the natural landscape. In exchange for achieving such integrity and unity, he must part with what constitutes the basis of the social – with his individuality: in Pankevich’s photographs, bizarre, expressive poses are not communicative gestures, but imitation of basic natural forms and motives. Natural reliefs are formed over the years: water, stone, tree bark bear the traces of centuries; in their frame, the human body becomes a symbol of the transience of life. This is how the collision of nature and man takes on a temporal dimension. Fissures and gaps acquire the meaning of gaps in the fabric of eternity, separate moments in time associated with a specific human life.
