Thesis: Home and Exile: Russian Artists Reflecting the Soviet Past
Supervisor: Professor Sarah Wilson
Centered on contemporary art, my research explores visual practices that offer a significant space for independent reflection on conflicted past. This study investigates the conceptual art of Russian ‘generation of postmemory’ artists who engage with and address the Soviet past. They lack direct experience of adult life in the Soviet Union, but are still preoccupied by “the inheritance of overwhelming memories” which has been passed down through generations. It analysis visual practices across various media that respond to the historical challenges of post-WWII, Perestroika, the dissolution of the USSR, and current wartime scenario. This will be compared with socialist realist art and nonconformist artists of the 1970s and 80s who lived in the Soviet Union, the part of the heritage that younger generations reflect upon. This duality of the generation gap and a historical repetition—the issues of lost home and exile—diaspora is also an aspect of my research. The study aims to show the process of new post-Soviet identity-building, rooted in identification with the Soviet past (which also includes denial). This research will broaden the understanding of post-Soviet art and shape a fresh framework by bringing new names, terminology and questions to the related fields.
Education
2022–present: PhD Candidate, The Courtauld Institute of Art, London
2018-2019: MA Contemporary Art Theory, Goldsmiths, University of London, London
2009-2014: Philosophy, Lomonosov Moscow State University, Moscow
Research Interests
- Soviet Art, Soviet Nonconformist Art, Moscow Conceptualism
- Post-Soviet Contemporary Art, Moscow Neo-Conceptualism, The 2010s generation
- Memory Studies, and Postmemory
- Art criticism and Curation
Teaching
Teaching Assistant, ‘Foundations 2: Exhibiting Art,’ The Courtauld Institute of Art (Winter-Spring 2026)
Teaching Assistant, ‘Foundations 2: Physical Histories,’ The Courtauld Institute of Art (Autumn-Winter 2025)
Conferences & Criticism
Conferences & Talks
‘Mediating GULAG Memory: Third-Generation Engagement with Silenced Histories in Visual Art,’ panel Curatorial Approaches, Anamnesia. Memory of Soviet Repressions in Contemporary Art in Russia, Alexandre Solzhenitsyn Cultural Center, Paris (November 2025).
‘Reimaging the Past and Future: Contemporary Speculative Fiction Museum,’ panel Post-Soviet Heritage and Cultural Memory, ICCEES XI World Congress, University College London, Institute of Education (July 2025)
‘Visual Strategies of Representing the Soviet Past in Contemporary Russian Art,’ panel Alternative Histories: Microhistory and Independent Perspectives, The Weaponisation of History: Refracting Soviet Memories in Contemporary Russia and Beyond conference, The Courtauld Institute of Art, University of London, London (June 2025)
‘Joseph Backstein’s Legacy as a Starting Point for a Professional Trajectory,’ panel New Generations, Joseph Backstein: Curating Contemporary Art, in and from Russia Symposium, Pushkin House, London (January 2025)
‘Pavel Otdelnov: Reimagining the Soviet Memory,’ panel Virtual, Real, and Decolonized, 56th Annual ASEEES Convention, virtual (October 2024)
‘Girl on Girl: Ways of Seeing (Impressionism)’, Gallery Talk, The Courtauld Gallery (July 2024)
‘Russian Artists in Exile: Representation of the Soviet Past In Industrial Ruinscapes’, Year Two PhD Symposium, Courtauld Institute of Art, London (May 2024)
‘Haunted Soviet: Postmemory and the Resonance of a Toxic Past in Contemporary Russian Art’, panel Resisting Imperialism through Decolonisation, BASEES, Cambridge (April 2024)
Publications & Criticism
Forthcoming: Konyushikhina, Elena. “Metageography as Displacement: Three Russian Artists,” accepted for publication in Slavonica, 2026.
Forthcoming: Konyushikhina, Elena. “Old Legacies, New Forms: Reimagining the Marxist Display in 2010s Moscow.” In Refracting Soviet Memories Through Art: The Weaponisation ofHistory in Contemporary Russia and Beyond, edited by Kitty Brandon-James, Elena Konyushikhina and Sarah Wilson. London: Routledge, 2026.
Review of ´73-23´ exhibition, ‘Russian Artists Exiled in a Loop,’ Art Focus Now (December 2023)
Artist profile, ‘Granova wrestles with the Soviet past,’ Art Focus Now (September 2023)
The Art Newspaper Russia, selected publications (2021-2022)
Iskusstvo, selected publications (2017-2018)
Moscow Art Magazine, selected publications (2017-2019)
Konyushikhina, Elena. Play “Behind Closed Eyes.” In the Start II: Images Into Words (Magazine by the class of Kimberly Bradley), edited by Andrea Kopranovic, 37–45. Salzburg: Summer Academy, 2017.
Konyushikhina, Elena. “Anton Mauve. Sheep in the Forest.” In The Last Quarter: An Alternative Guide to the State Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts, edited by Dieter Roelstraete, 21. Moscow: V-A-C, 2017.
Ganicheva, Varvara, Konyushikhina, Elena, and Smoliakova, Ekaterina. Art Nouveau Furniture. Catalogue. Moscow: Art Deco Museum, 2015.
Konyushikhina, Elena. “Feminism Concept.” In the Actual vocabulary of Feminist Art, edited by Ilmira Bolotyan and Maria Vinnik, 130-133. Moscow: Rosa Luxemburg Foundation, 2015.
Curatorial Projects
Founder of Youtube channel plateau, London-Moscow (2019–2020)
The Family Archive, Theater am Steg, Baden, Austria (May-June 2018)
Alex Khatkevich: 44 Glass Syringes with Novocain, Triangle Independent Curatorial Studio, Moscow (June 2016)
Voices, A3 Gallery, Moscow (October–November 2015)
Additional projects
Femme F(r)iction, Academy Mansion, New York (May 2023), research, editing and writing
Inside the Vortices. Olya Leontieva, 25 Kadr Gallery, Moscow (November–February 2020)
Mementos, Deptford Does Art, London (June 2019)
Sleep In The Red Tower. Solo exhibition of Evgeniya Nozhkina. 25 Kadr Gallery, Moscow (January-February 2019)
About Me, Please, About Me, 25 Kadr Gallery, Moscow, 6th Moscow International Biennale for Young Art. Parallel program (July 2018)
Starting Point, CCI Fabrica, Moscow, 5th Moscow International Biennale for Young Art. Parallel program, Moscow (July 2016)
Happy New Year! Solo show, Alexander Anoufriev. Triangle Independent Curatorial Studio, Moscow (December 2015)
Good Night, Vadim Sidur Museum, Moscow (May 2015)
Academic Service
Chair: Panel London Between the Mediterranean and the Baltic, Metropolitan Crossings: Art, Displacement, and the Making of Modern London (1930s–1970s), Symposium, Ben Uri Gallery and Museum, London (November 2025)
Chair: Panel Soviet Women in Political Activism: State Organisations and Dissident Movements, ICCEES XI World Congress, University College London, Institute of Education (July 2025)
Co-organiser, The Weaponisation of History: Refracting Soviet Memories in Contemporary Russia and Beyond, The Courtauld Institute of Art, London (June 2025)
Co-organiser, The Courtauld Second Year PhD Symposium, The Courtauld Institute of Art, London (May 2024)
Co-organiser, Workshop on Writing Abstracts and Delivering Presentations with Josie Dixon, The Courtauld Institute of Art, London (May 2024)
Awards & Grants
- Edward Said Scholarship (2025-2026)
- Courtauld Scholarship (2022-2024)
- Courtauld Travel Grant (2024)
- Association for Art History Scholarly Research Grant (2023)
- Chevening Scholarship (2018-2019)
- International Summer Academy of Fine Arts Scholarship, Salzburg (2017)
- Travel Grant, Moscow Goethe Institute, Berlin (2016)
