Ksenia Arefieva is an artist working at the intersection of fashion and documentary photography. She has a background in fine arts and experience in the fashion industry. In her projects, she explores themes of faith, core life values and the human body.
Awards
Publications
“There are many Alexey’s, but few Shors.”
How the Shor People Live in the Kemerovo Region
Exhibitions
Umwelt, Traces of Presence
Curated by Olga Matveeva
9 prints on Hahnemühle, 300 g paper, 1/1
Belgrade, Serbia, April 14 — 30, 2026
The exhibition “Traces of Presence” explores the phenomenology of the trace — how experience is imprinted and preserved within the body, space, and relationships with others. Through collages of archival photographs, Ksenia examines the traces that shape our memory and perception of the world.
Umwelt is the concept of a subjective world. Although all living beings exist within the same objective reality, each perceives and constructs its own world through its senses, instincts, and lived experience. This work emerged after the death of my cat, who was part of my life for nineteen years. His life becomes the temporal frame of the project. Within this frame, personal photographs, images of my cat, and photographs of planetary catastrophes come together in a series of collages. These works bring together different scales of existence — the private life of a human, the life of an animal, and events of the larger world that unfold at the same time, yet are experienced differently by each.
Another sea
Curated by Nadya Shtirova
20×30 print, 300 g paper, 1/1
Novosibirsk, April 11
There is a sea in Novosibirsk, though it isn’t quite real. Being frozen, it was a blank white canvas where have gathered other seas — just in time for a one-day exhibition on the Ob Sea before the ice melts. I participated with a photo from an expedition to the Black Sea.
The Outsiders
Curated by Anna Tut 2023-2025
Dye-sublimation printing on fabric
Liminal States exhibition
Vorkuta, March 14 — April 5, 2026
The project explores the fate of discarded objects that have lost their original function. By capturing “outcast objects” in their new silence, the series investigates the boundary between function and oblivion. Shown as part of the Liminal States exhibition.