Masha Levchenko

Masha Levchenko | 835429 | 2024

Your statement revolves around the question “Who am I?”. How does photography help you explore this question?

Among the multitude of alternatives, it’s hard to understand — what is truly me? Am I what society has instilled in me, or do I resist the influence and directions of other people’s minds? It’s not just photography, but a creative process that helps me enter the inner realm. It’s like keeping an emotional diary — you begin to hear and understand yourself, but through images.

Masha Levchenko | 232113 | 2021

Do you believe that through self-discovery one can also lose a part of themselves, as you suggest in your text?

Yes, it’s inevitable — not the loss of your true self, but rather of your current one. As we discover and embrace the new, we displace the old. When faced with the question, am I this body or am I consciousness? — can one ever fully go back to focusing only on the material after that?

Many of your images seem to reflect solitude and reflection. Are they autobiographical, or do they speak more universally?

I hope it’s not part of a trend. I think everything is about autobiography — any creative expression.

Masha Levchenko | 543665 | 2025

What role does the environment play in your work — especially the contrast between natural and urban spaces?

Sometimes it plays a very big role.

It may happen that the artist is not me, but rather the space I am in at the moment of shooting.

“I am an instrument in your hands.”

And there are several approaches to this.

In the first one, you deliberately choose the environment — an abandoned house, a meat market, a psychiatric hospital, etc. — and you don’t have to invent anything, because the space itself is already assembled, the scenery already set.

In the second, more interesting approach, you simply go into an unfamiliar environment, arrive at the location, and the space begins to change before your eyes — like in our works 876499 and 835429, when there was a storm at the time of shooting, one we never ordered.

But in both the second and the first case, something unexpected can happen. For example, during the shoot, the psychiatric hospital might start to be demolished, a herd of sheep could run through the meat market, or a UFO could crash into the old house.

Masha Levchenko | 876499 | 2024

Your works often evoke a sense of mystery and silence. How important is ambiguity in your creative process?

“The reader is a co-author.” That’s the approach I follow. Ambiguity is a space for reflection. And I don’t mean an endless search for hidden meaning — if I can’t find a clear structure, perhaps it isn’t meant to be there at all.

How do you choose between color and black-and-white when expressing emotion or mood in your images?

Always depending on my mood. Sometimes I can spend several weeks thinking about whether to keep the photo in color or turn it into black and white.

Masha Levchenko | 716550 | 2025

What inspires your visual aesthetics — literature, cinema, or personal memories?

Literature, cinema, and personal memory. 

And also music. 

And the whole world — down to the bricks of a ruined building.