Born in 1986 in Tuapse (Russia). Lives and works in Saint Petersburg.
Vika Bykovskaya is an artist working with photography. At the heart of her practice are subtle, often elusive connections between the body, landscape, and memory. Her work is autobiographical, growing out of experiences of loss, love, solitude, and the longing for closeness — yet it leads the viewer toward broader reflections on how the relationship between human and world is structured, between the visible and the invisible, between presence and absence.
Her artistic practice is grounded in an attempt to explore the space between the self and the other, the inner and outer landscape. Through self-portraits and portraits of others, she reveals how personal experiences do not exist in isolation, but resonate with the surrounding world. The landscape in her work is not merely a backdrop, but a living interlocutor — one that holds memory and responds to inner states.
For her, photography is a way of being with the world — not by intruding, but by listening. Attention becomes a form of care, the image a trace of encounter. In her work, inanimate nature finds its own voice, and the human is no longer at the center, but part of a complex web of relationships, where each element influences and responds.
Teaching experience
2020 — untill now | Educator at experimental laboratory Private Image
2017 — untill now | Teaching course of portrait photography at Academy of documentary and art photography Fotografika, Russia
2012 — 2015 | Educator at the Academy of Photography of St. Petersburg, Russia
Education
2024 | Definition of totality Program at FotoDepartament
2022-2023 | Alla Mirovskaya Art Project Workshop
2022 | Maria Guryeva’s courses “Principles of Photography Analysis” and “Photography: History, Theory, Research Methodology”, European University
2021 | Exercises in conceptualization Program at FotoDepartament
2021 | Photobook workshop “Prodlenka” at Academy of documentary and art photography Fotografika, Russia
2020 | Course of Katya Bogachevskaya “Photoproject: from idea to promotion” at Academy of documentary and art photography Fotografika, Russia
2019 — 2020 | Documentary photography and photojournalism at DocDocDoc school, Russia
2006 | Faculty of photojournalists named after Y.A. Galperin
2003 — 2008 | The Faculty of Journalism of St. Petersburg State University
Interviews
