Kira Urufu

I was born in Moscow in 2000. I spent my entire childhood in the Biryulyovo Vostochnoye area – this is a typical residential area of Moscow, with old panel houses, its own rules and scary stories about the dashing 90s.
From early childhood I adored creativity in all its forms, dreamed of becoming an artist, then I entered an architecture school and thought about a career as an architect, but my dislike for drawing and mathematics pushed me towards environmental and interior design.
After studying for 2 years in this specialty, I left the institute and started working at IKEA. A separate series of photographs is dedicated to this wonderful period in my life, they are incredibly dear to me as a memory of a stable, calm life that many do not have now.
I’ve always loved photography. I literally photographed everything that surrounded me.
I started taking a lot of photographs after February 24, 2022, when my life, like the lives of millions of other people, changed greatly, and I no longer felt safe.
Confidence in the future disappeared, I stopped planning my life ahead, because all my dreams, plans and goals collapsed in one moment, and I started living here and now.
I wanted to capture every moment of my life, because it became absolutely unclear “What will happen tomorrow?”
So I started capturing everything that caught my attention and that I wanted to record with my phone.
Gradually, there were a lot of photographs, and a whole “series” of works began to appear.
Photography helped me to distract myself, forced me to leave the house in search of new “discoveries”, taught me to see beauty in the most seemingly ordinary things:
A bright spot of light, a shabby wall of a house, a flashing lamp in a passage, a puddle on the asphalt.
You can say that the pictures are my personal “diary” without words.
My thoughts, experiences and sensations are hidden in them.
For me, photography is the most accurate way to record my own feelings and emotions in the moment.
Looking at every frame I took, I remember all my impressions and thoughts at the moment when the picture was taken.
And it is these feelings that I want to convey to my viewers. Share my thoughts and emotions.

The project “Sad Russia in Pictures” is a collection of my photographs taken during walks in different parts of our country.

It contains houses, streets, entrances, apartments, household items and many other, very different things that are part of our culture and history, and therefore an integral part of our life.