Sasha Zaitseva- mixed media artist

Sasha Zaitseva is a multidisciplinary Ukrainian artist. 

Her artistic practice is centered around mask assemblies and installations, as well as textile and embroidery. Due to her Ukrainian-Russian origin and the geopolitical situation in Ukraine, she primarily works with the cultural trauma of war. A descendant of Donetsk, Sasha explores the limits and edges of cultural identity. Originated from the city at the border of two countries, she is interested in the cultural mixture as the formation of personal identity.

Her major source of inspiration comes from her origins, the history of Ukraine and Donbass, its traditions and popular techniques.

By fusioning mass-market objects (plastic toys, charms, etc.) with authentic and vintage pieces from Ukrainian and Russian cultures, Sasha creates hybrid figures that borrow from different worlds. She reconstructs a story from objects and their symbols in order to question their components in identity formation. Their heterogeneous assembly underlines the identity conflict of the individual vis-a-vis her/his community.

Sasha Zaitseva accumulates representative objects from mass culture by recycling their symbolism alongside everyday objects from the Soviet past. The gestures of collecting, cutting and unstitching, assembling, embroidering, and picking up come to oppose those of overconsumption. They refer to the familiar gestures of her childhood, belonging to a logic of decrease and weaving from which we reconstruct a language.