Evgenia Arbugaeva

Evgenia Arbugaeva was born in 1985 in Siberia, in the city of Tiksi, on the Laptev Sea. She studied art management at the International University of Moscow and then moved to New York. There, she studied documentary photography at the International Center of Photography.

She spent twenty years in New York but never forgot her hometown, Tiksi. Over time, her memories faded and city only persisted in her mind as a vague image which seemed to be less and less real. Returning to Siberia in 2010, the city was deserted and nature has regained its territory. She met a girl, Tanya, who had made the city her playground. Evgenia Arbugaeva recreated her memories of childhood through the games and explorations of this girl whom she befriended.

The composition of her photographs is inspired by caricatures dating from the Soviet Union found in Tanya's books: the colours are vibrant and the subject is centred. Her images, however realistic, evoke imaginary world, somehow floating suspended between clouds and snow, bathed in an soft light.

She now lives between New York and Russia. Arbugaeva’s photographs have received numerous prizes: the Magnum Emergency Fund prize in 2012, the Leica Barnack Prize in 2013 and the ICP Infinity Prize for young photographers.