TANIA LESHKINA
INTERVIEW BY LELE SAVERI
Tania Leshkina is an 18-(18!)-year-old photographer, artist, and student who lives in Moscow, which to us is like living on Mars. We discovered her work recently and, like, wow. Martians are talented!
Vice: Hi, how are you?
Tania Leshkina: I’m tired, tired, tired. I’ve been trying to finish my diploma plus doing some personal projects. So I’ll be spending the whole week doing shoots.
So you’re studying? Is it an art school?
Yep. I’m in my third year of college studying photography, but it’s not the same as a BA. I’ve only just turned 18. In my college, they think I can’t shoot. They are people born in the Soviet times. All the professors are old and can’t understand what I’m doing.
Can I ask you where you get your inspirations?
Experience! I started shooting and expressing myself before I was diagnosed with epilepsy. I don’t know. Depression. Medications and hospitals and a really hard time. Isolation! I’m in love with every day. Really.
Maybe you should drop out of college and just work.
If I do drop out of college, I’ll go live in the mountains and check my email very rarely.
When and how did you start taking pictures?
I was in the hospital and my parents brought me a camera.
How are you feeling now?
I don’t know. I’m not sure that I’m ill. I’ve been taking pills every day since I was 13. I keep changing medications—it started with carbamazepine, like Ian Curtis. But anyway, I started shooting myself and the other wardmates when I was 14.
Most of your photos—all of my favorite ones, to be honest—are shot inside in your bedroom. Why is that? Is it because Russia is cold and people can’t really go out without freezing?
It’s not cold so much as it’s gray. No sunlight, and I’m a white maniac. You’ve probably noticed, I think. I hate the winter in Moscow, and I love to spend it in other places. It’s not freezing but it’s a spinning feeling like it will never end. Also it gets dark so early and you see the sun in very small doses. I was born in Khabarovsk and during the winter they have lots of snow. My mom used to take my brother and me to painting classes through all of this. I want to thank my daddy since next winter I’ll be in London. In September, I’ll start studying sculpture at the Wimbledon College of Art.
Did you ever wonder why you take so many photos of yourself?
I’ve thought a lot about why self-portraits are my main thing. With every picture you try to recognize yourself, to understand that you’re still here. You know, some people don’t trust mirrors. Sometimes I shoot friends, but that’s also like a self-portrait. But I’m not obsessed with myself. Girls always shoot themselves.
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Anonymous, on Oct 7, 2009 wrote:
She is a great artist!I like her weird view of the world!!!Excellent!!! | | Anonymous, on Aug 5, 2008 wrote:
this is a great set of photographs. please, more like this.
| | Anonymous, on Aug 4, 2008 wrote:
The old professors are right, dude. | | Anonymous, on Aug 1, 2008 wrote:
Way to namedrop the single photographer you’ve ever heard of.
Here’s what you sound like:
"I don’t know about this Obama guy, he’s no George Washington." | | Anonymous, on Aug 1, 2008 wrote:
haha, yes you people must be right. she’s fucking brilliant, really, her art is just so far beyond me that i can’t figure it out and frankly it gives me a headache to even try.
i would much rather look at 9000 boring ansel adams prints for the rest of my life than give any credit to this little trollop. | | Anonymous, on Jul 25, 2008 wrote:
carbamazepine, like Ian Curtis
-explains a lot | | Anonymous, on Jul 25, 2008 wrote:
envy is a sad, sad thing | | Anonymous, on Jul 23, 2008 wrote:
you guys are fucking stupid. shes expressing reality. you are alternating between porn and letting your boner fall down by checking vice every once in a while, so that you can keep up masterbating as it is the only thing you have left to distract you from your pathetic existence. excuse me, bangbus is done loading. | | Anonymous, on Jul 23, 2008 wrote:
Uh, has anyone who writes Vice ever been to art school in London? Because 99% of pictures look like this. If you are taught everything there is to know about lighting and camera settings any asshat can make this.
And it’s not because she’s young and female, jerkoff. I’m young and female. It’s because they’re self-centred, very competent myspace photos. | | Anonymous, on Jul 23, 2008 wrote:
Whoa, jealous much? Any time Vice has published the work of a female artist/photographer the commenters have tripped over themselves to call it worthless. They did it with this, they did it with Michelle O’Marah here and on VBS, they did it BIG TIME with Jamie Warren, and guess what? They are all excellent artists who do things so inextricably linked with the female brain they could never be pulled off by a dude. | | Anonymous, on Jul 23, 2008 wrote:
HA! is this what vice has come to be? guys, i know that 18 year old emo self-obsessed angst is super hip and being in some shitty city forever is even hipper, but give me a fucking break. why dont you just print 500 pages of lemon party? that would be way more interesting and abstract than this garbage | | Anonymous, on Jul 23, 2008 wrote:
ahhhwell.
it might not be your style, but you should at least commend her for working at what she loves.
i think she’s great. | | Shazzam, on Jul 22, 2008 wrote:
Wanderlust enclosed. | | Anonymous, on Jul 22, 2008 wrote:
Maybe. If you were hot, young, Russian, and took weird self portraits... you to could be an a silly Viacom magazine. | | Anonymous, on Jul 22, 2008 wrote:
hey i own a camera. can i be in the magazine. | | Anonymous, on Jul 22, 2008 wrote:
some of the best photos yet. | | Anonymous, on Jul 22, 2008 wrote:
If she is a photographer, I am the Pope! | | Anonymous, on Jul 22, 2008 wrote:
Boooooooooooooooooooooooorrrrrrrriiiiiiiiiing. | | Anonymous, on Jul 22, 2008 wrote:
Moss cow cool. email this guy - mapa.dingo@gmail | | Anonymous, on Jul 22, 2008 wrote:
Emperor’s
New
Clothes | | Anonymous, on Jul 22, 2008 wrote:
so umpteen years of bread lines and intermittent electricity and commie bullshit and now they have milk jugs the size of a great dane? what gives? | | Anonymous, on Jul 22, 2008 wrote:
you should interview real photographers like the ones that work at hustler | | Anonymous, on Jul 22, 2008 wrote:
I guess this is what defines modern photography: lack of any discernible standard of excellence. Will someone please tell me what it is about these pictures--nay--any of the pictures on this website--that make them somehow _good_? | | Anonymous, on Jul 22, 2008 wrote:
that didn’t fix my hangover | | Anonymous, on Jul 22, 2008 wrote:
this chick needs a sandwich | | |
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