Yulia Lebedeva

mind(e)scape

Yulia Lebedeva
mind(e)scape

12 April 2019 — 12 May 2019

As part of the XI Moscow International Biennale ‘Fashion and Style in Photography-2019’ the Multimedia Art Museum, Moscow presents ‘mind(e)scape’, the new project by Yulia Lebedeva.

Yulia Lebedeva readdresses problems of representation and self-identification. In her Instagram project showcased at MAMM for the Photobiennale 2013 Lebedeva examined the nature of the media and analysed mechanisms determining the success of a particular photo on social networks and new means of communication using images and ‘likes’, reflecting on how documentary and personal items morph into artistic and public issues.

The ‘mind(e)scape’ project, which Yulia Lebedeva worked on from 2015 to 2018, further develops ideas already formulated. Appropriating the stylistics of social networks, Lebedeva muses on what people of the next generation need to feel happy. Mindscape is the mental landscape that surrounds modern humanity. The required lifesaving cocoon of prosperity, light-heartedness and the ‘good life’ that people weave by documenting and carefully selecting events in their life, creating their own ‘comfort zone’. As a kind of defence mechanism this phenomenon provides isolation from reality, immersion in an artificial environment without everyday cares. By exposing to the public view selected and conceptually approved photographs that illustrate our prosperous and carefree lifestyle, we strive for love, recognition and tranquillity while still maintaining the privacy of our true self.

The word ‘escape’ in the project title refers to psychological care in a constructed universe, as one of the options we choose when confronted by the challenges of the modern world and recognition of our own vulnerability and defencelessness.

Yulia Lebedeva is a former student of the A. Rodchenko School of Photography and Multimedia and graduate of the London College of Communication, University of the Arts London. She trained in the studios of Annie Leibovitz and Juergen Teller.

Selected solo and group exhibitions: Moscow International Biennale ‘Fashion and Style in Photography-2011’ (‘Drive’ project), Moscow International Biennale ‘Fashion and Style in Photography-2013’ (‘Instagram’ project), ‘I am Who I am’ (Kunst im Tunnel, Düsseldorf, 2012), New Generation of Russian Art (Krinzinger Gallery, Vienna, 2017).