VARVARA UHLIK
*UPCOMING*
SUNSHINE, HOW ARE YOU?
SLAV GAZE
DIGITAL (AFTER)
PLAYLAND
VIDEO WORKS
COMMISSIONS AND NOT
about
Varvara Uhlik (b. 1997, Dnipro, Ukraine) is a Ukrainian photographer and visual artist based in London. Rooted in her personal history and the landscapes of her upbringing in Eastern Ukraine, her work explores the inherited complexities of post-Soviet identity. Through photography, video, sculpture, and installation, Varvara navigates themes of generational trauma, cultural memory, and the enduring shadow of Russian imperialism on both individual lives and the wider socio-political fabric of Eastern Europe.
Central to her practice is the act of digital archiving — a means of piecing together fractured memories and inaccessible geographies. Since the 2014 occupation of Crimea, and more acutely during the ongoing full-scale war, Varvara’s connection to formative places and people has been mediated through fading family albums, online fragments, and pixelated remnants. Her photographs confront the tension between the permanence of digital records and the physical absence they represent, inviting a nuanced reflection on belonging, loss, and the slipperiness of memory — particularly in an age when even memory can be fabricated by AI, blurring the boundaries between truth and fabrication.
In her photographic work, she reworks personal family archives alongside newly constructed scenes, to create visual narratives that move between the imagined and the remembered. In her video and installation practice, she incorporates found imagery, online sources, and mapping tools such as Google Maps to further examine themes of displacement, reconstruction, and the digital mediation of memory. Across media, scenes of folkloric domesticity, intimate rituals, and imagined returns create spaces where rupture and repair coexist, and personal and collective histories intertwine.
In 2024, she was selected as one of the British Journal of Photography’s Ones to Watch. Her work has been exhibited internationally, including at Milan Photo Fair (2024, 2025), Encontros da Imagem (2024), and Liquida Photofestival (2025), and has appeared in publications such as British Journal of Photography, Photoworks, Der Greif, Paris Photo, and Yogurt Magazine.
cv
Born in 1997 in Dnipro, Ukraine
Based between London, UK and The Hague, NL
EDUCATION
2023-2025 MA Fine Art: Media, Slade School of Fine Art, UCL, London, UK
2019-2023 BA Photography, Royal Academy of Art, The Hague, Netherlands
2016-2019 BA Arts and Media Management, Jagiellonian University, Krakow, Poland
SOLO EXHIBITIONS
2025
Sunshine, How Are You?, Liquida Photofestival, Polo del '900, Turin, Italy
GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2026
FOCUS, Artphilein Foundation, Lugano, Switzerland
2025
reGeneration Z, Photo Elysée, Lausanne, Switzerland
Rebirth, Spilka Paris & Honchar Museum, Galerie Cinema, Paris, France
MIA Photo Fair Milano, Irinox Award, Milan, Italy
2024
Encontros da Imagem, International Photography and Visual Arts Festival, Braga, Portugal
Der Greif: Arles Edition, Rencontres d'Arles, portfolio screening, ParisBerlin Fotohaus, Arles, France
Fotofestiwal, International Festival of Photography, portfolio screening, Lodz, Poland
PhMuseum Days, International Photography Festival, portfolio screening, Bologna, Italy
Verzasca Foto Festival, portfolio screening, Switzerland
Kranj Foto Fest 2024, portfolio screening, Kranj, Slovenia
MIA Photo Fair Milano, ‘Welcome To My Unknown’ exhibition, Milan, Italy
‘THERE IS SOMETHING NEW UNDER THE SUN’, TANK Magazine, London, UK
2023
REGENERATE: Noorderlicht International Photo Festival, Groningen, Netherlands
Public Space Exhibition 2023, Altona, Hamburg, Germany
PIT, Southwark Park Galleries, London, UK
Free Range, AOP Student Awards, Truman Brewery, London, UK
PRESS, FEATURES
2025 Riga Photography Biennial 2025
2024 Canal180 Interview: Memory and idenity in the shadow of history. 180 Meets
2024 Der Greif: Artist Feature and Blog2024 Yogurt Magazine, Italy 2024 De Standaard, Daily Newspaper, Belgium 2024 British Journal of Photography, ‘Ones To Watch 2024’ Issue, London, UK
2024 Paris Photo, Carte Blanche
2023 Photography+, Photoworks, Issue #20, Graduate Issue 2023, Brighton, UK
2023 Paris Photo, Carte Blanche
2023 British Journal of Photography, Carte Blanche Article
2023 PHMuseum, Women Photographers Grant
2023 See-Zeen, Magazine for Contemporary Photography, Issue #10, Fall
2023 Artdoc Photography Magazine, Enigma of Life
2021 cockroach, KABK, The Hague, Netherlands
AWARDS & GRANTS
2025 Sarabande Foundation Emerging Artist Fund 2025 LensCulture New Visions Award, finalist
2025 Getxo Photo, REC, shortlist2024 PARIS PHOTO, finalist Carte Blanche
2024 Belfast Photo Festival, shortlist, awarded “Highly Commended”
2024 Athens Photo Festival, shortlist
2024 PhMuseum Photography Grant, shortlist
2023 PARIS PHOTO, finalist Carte Blanche
Gertrude
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AucArt