I haven’t been home for more than three years. I’m not even sure if my home is Moscow anymore.
Every morning since leaving Russia, I have taken a self-portrait. The rules are simple: take a photograph right after waking up. No matter where, how, or with whom. This is my documentation of impermanence, the ritual that helps me stay grounded.
I have learned to speak different photographic dialects: I take self-portraits every morning, I make performative videos, I wander in urban settings. I try to connect to my family both literally and figuratively: through video calls, messengers, archival photographs, documents, and the act of walking. I search for Moscow in American cities. I set those parameters for myself: using a compass, I walk West or East with my grandfathers’ Soviet Zenit camera and I take photographs facing those two cardinal points. I find myself recording decaying scenes, self-destructing landscapes, blocked and broken portals.
At the end of February 2022, my country instigated a war in Ukraine. As a Russian, thousands of miles away from home, I couldn’t comprehend what was and (still is) happening. I realized that some of my peers and relatives back home have diametrically opposing viewpoints about the politics of war in Ukraine. I was shocked by the evident power of propaganda. In response, I turned to Russian idioms, which point to the physical act of brainwashing.
Sometimes I dream about walking in the suburbs of Moscow and wonder how much it has changed. I try to bridge the gap between one home and another: Russia and the US, East and West, Black and White. I walk for hours with my camera and whenever I take a photograph, I always wonder, what time is it in Moscow?
About Yana Nosenko
Yana Nosenko studied design at Moscow Academy of Design and Applied Arts. After graduating in 2016, she worked for Strelka KB, an urban planning company, as a graphic designer. In 2017, she finished a major project — designing a font family “Mayak”, which is based on Soviet constructivist fonts of 1920s–1930s, which was released by ParaType Company. Yana works across mediums to explore immigration, displacement, nomadism, and familial separation, reflecting on her own experiences growing up in Moscow, Russia. Her work was recently exhibited at the International Center of Photography Museum in New York City, MassArt x SoWa, and Abigail Ogilvy Gallery. In 2023, Yana was awarded a residency at the Studios at MASS MoCA. That same year, she started working at the Griffin Museum of Photography as a Curatorial Associate and Exhibition Designer. Yana holds an MFA in Photography from Massachusetts College of Art and Design and currently resides in Boston, MA. [Official Website]
