Lyuda Kalinichenko
Lyuda Kalinichenko is a multimedia artist whose practice spans installation, sculpture, photography, video, text, sound, and performance. The main focus of her practice is personal and collective memory, and the ways it is transformed, preserved, and reconstructed through materials. Textile is central to her work, approached as a fragile archive and a carrier of traces, memory, and bodily presence.
Born in the Urals, RSFSR, USSR 1985
Lives and works in London, UK
One of the key points of departure in her artistic practice is a personal story: in 2016, her family photo archive was accidentally lost. After this, Lyuda began to reconstruct her family memory through oral stories, photographs, archival research, and her own reconstructions. This process later became the basis for her artist’s book A Book About My Family.
In Lyuda’s practice, memory is not only an image or a story, but also a material, bodily, and sonic experience. It can exist through photography, text, fabric, smell, voice, gesture, repeated action, noise, rhythm, or pause.
One of the important methods in her practice is repetition — a logic close to Ctrl+C / Ctrl+V, the loop, rhythm, and return. While mechanical copying can lead to depersonalisation, in Lyuda’s work repetition, on the contrary, emphasises the fragility and uniqueness of personal memory. Each time it returns, a memory changes: some details disappear, others re-emerge, and a personal story takes shape in a new form.
The artist’s background in the industrial Urals also informs the visual and sonic language of her work. Industrial landscapes, machines, materials, labour, mechanical sound, and rhythm appear in her practice not only as markers of place, but also as carriers of memory. Through personal and family histories, Lyuda opens onto wider social, political, and historical contexts.
Lyuda is also known as the “mother” of Industrial Baby, a public art sculpture installed on the city pond in Yekaterinburg, in the Urals. Her works have been presented in the main project of the 4th Ural Industrial Biennial of Contemporary Art and in the special programme of the 5th Ural Industrial Biennial. Her project Best Before: Unlimited was shortlisted for the Innovation Prize 2021 in the New Generation category. Her artist’s book projects include A Book About My Family and The Tale of How Zoya the Horse Learned to Fly.
Instagram: @lk_lyuda
CV
SOLO AND DUO EXHIBITIONS /SELECTED/
2026 – "RETREAT " / The SCA-2 Art Satellite / Xu Bing Space Art Residency
2026 – "Stitch / Sound / Stitch" / The Peckham Pelican / London / UK
2022 – "The book about my family", Urals branch of the Pushkin Museum / Yekaterinburg
2021 – "The Enemy Mine", Project "NitiXNiti /Aramil Knitting factory / Aramil
2021 – "Kiss-s-s", Urals branch of the Pushkin Museum / Yekaterinburg
2020 – «Best before: unlimited», the photographic museum «Metenkov House» / Yekaterinburg
2019 – «Elysium», gallery «Sinara Art» / Yekaterinburg
2019 – «Dialogue», gallery «Narodnaya» / Nizhniy Tagil
2018 – «500 Meters online», project «Start» Winzavod CCA / Moscow
2018 - «Household Surrealism», gallery «Pro Art's» / Kaluga
2017 – «Household Surrealism», gallery «OkNo» / Chelyabinsk
2017 – «Gradient of the linear difference», foundation «Cultural Transit» / Yekaterinburg
2016 – «Household Surrealism», gallery «Space Place» / Nizhniy Tagil
2015 – «Finish Goods», museum of Fine Аrts / art-gru LKKL / Nizhny Tagil
BIENNIAL AND FESTIVALS /SELECTED/
2026 – «DRIFTLANDS», Balkan Textile Biennale / Belgrade and Novi Sad, Serbia
2022 – Urals Public Art Festival "ChÖ" / Yekaterinburg
2019 – Preview of the 5th Ural industrial Biennale of contemporary art, gallery "GUM-Red-Line"/ Moscow
2019 – «Nothing is what it seems», Special project of The 5th Ural Industrial Biennial of Contemporary Art, public space interventions / Tyumen
2019 – «After Us», Special project of The 5th Ural Industrial Biennial of Contemporary Art, public space interventions, Ural NCCA / Yekaterinburg
2019 – «Collectivity. Axis for peace» festival «Presence» FotoDepartament / S. Peterburg
2017 – 4th Ural Industrial Biennial: «New Literacy», curator Joao Ribas. Ural Instrument-Making Plant / Yekaterinburg
2018 – «Nothing is what it seems» festival «Bazhov-Fest» NCCA Ural / Yekaterinburg
2018 – «Bring Your Own Beamer Vol.3» Yeltsin Center Art Gallery / Yekaterinburg
2018 – «Art-subject» contemporary art festival / Vladimir
2018 – «KosMost» - festival of contemporary photography / Kostrom
2017 – «Undark Festival» / Yekaterinburg
2017 – «Natura e artificio» festival «Trullo 227» / Martina Franca, Italy
2017 – «Experience of Transition», festival «Presence» FotoDepartament / S.Peterburg
2016 – "Young photographers of Russia-2016", photo festival / Pushchino
2016 – "Marsciano Arte Giovani" art-festival / Marsciano, Italy
GROUP EXHIBITIONS /SELECTED/
2026 – "NO SPACE" / Sheffield / UK
2025 – "Murmurs over the Glass Towers" / London / UK
2025 – "The Matrix" / London / UK
2025 " FLOW" / Fleet Studios / London / UK
2025 – "Winter Salon" / Pushkin House / London / UK
2023 – "Art in the age of decline" / The Safehouse / London / UK
2021 – Exhibition of nominees of the Innovation Prize 2020 / Nizhny Novgorod
2021 – "Strange Agents", Victoria Underground Gallery / Samara
2021 – "Distant Planets of DAP" for the 80th anniversary of D. Prigov / Yeltsin Center Art Gallery / Yekaterinburg
2021 – "Garden of Unearthly Consolations", V. Smirnov and K. Sorokin Foundation / Moscow
2021 -– "Alice, please turn on the radio!" online gallery "Paul's Labyrinth"/ZIL Center/Moscow
2021 – "Invisible Women" / Gallery "Thursday" / Moscow
2020 – «Kvartirale», Apartment Exhibition Festival / Yekaterinburg
2019 – «Gentle Touches», gallery « Victoria» / Samara
2018 – «I'm not a robot», exhibition halls of Moscow «Electromuseum» / Moscow
2018 – «Taming the void. 50 years of Ural contemporary art», The Krasnoyarsk Museum Center / Krasnoyarsk
2017 – «Why do I dream of light?» Yeltsin Center Art Gallery / Yekaterinburg
2016 – "Artrooms" Week Art Fair / London, UK
2016 – «Nonrandom connection» NCCA Ural / Yekaterinburg
2016 – "Tempus Locus", museum of Fine Аrts / Nizhny Tagil
2016 – "When I'm Appear ", FotoDepartament / S.Peterburg
ART-RESIDENCIES
2020 – « New stories of Yekaterinburg», the photographic museum «Metenkov House» / Yekaterinburg
2026 – Xu Bing Space Art Residency / The SCA-2 Art Satellite
BOOKS
2013-2021– Launch of the "Tale about how the horse Zoe learned to fly" / Author, illustrator and art director
2016-2022 – "A book about my family"
PUBLICATIONS WITH ME:
2026 - Sometimes You Need a Complete Vacuum to Hear Yourself: Performance [RETREAT] in Space
2026 - Lyuda Kalinichenko: “I represented Britain at the Balkan Textile Biennale in Serbia” / II Gurn
2024 - Zima Magazine's Artist of the Month. March's winner is Lyudmila Kalinichenko
- The article by Maria Domracheva about the project "Gradient of Linear Changes" in the online magazine Aroundart
- The article by Anton Shebetko in the online magazine "Bird in Flight" about the project "Best before: unlimited"
- The article by Teena Garnik The joy of recognizing
- 4th Ural Industrial Biennial of Contemporary Art: New Literacy /e-flux
2017– 2019 Maternity leave. Curating young projects.Curator of the youth contemporary art laboratory at the Ural Industrial Biennale. Conducting children's workshops. Curator and speaker for the youth mobile photography contest "The Golden Apple".