My name is Victoria Dini and I am a photographic artist. I got a Global Talent Art Visa UK for my art and have been living and working in London since February 2023.
I work with poetry, photography and performance art, and combine documentary, magic and conceptual practices. My photographs have been exhibited in St. Petersburg, Rome, Brussels, London, and Moscow, printed on covers, and exist as books.
Sometimes I feel as if I am writing one big book from different angles, and it is a book about identity, about what it means to be a human being on the planet. To be free the way you are. My method of work is to research myself, observing my own experiences and the experiences of people going through similar things. I’m autistic, so I see the world in a slightly alien way, and this often allows me to witness and make sense of something familiar from a different angle.
I explore the themes: what it is like being a lesbian. Being a foster mum. Living with the effects of abuse and complex post-traumatic stress disorder. And autism, of course. Opening up to intimacy. To break free from imposed heteronormative canons. To sort out my relationship with my country of birth and new country of residence.
Visual language is my favourite to avoid the language barrier. It helps to express the most complicated feelings. And I do love to help people to express themselves, too.
That’s why I do art portrait shots, which are mostly about spontaneous self-discovery than about posing.
And I do art classes, where I teach photography as a way to hear yourself and to make life better.
Also, I make things that work as a healing art-instrument, like Resource Box, and sell prints of my works.
I firmly believe that nothing is more important than visibility. Everything unseen retains its destructive effect, but what you see allows you to make sense of it, to live the feelings, to breathe. To feel alive.
Photography can be much more than just a pretty picture, but the portal to that experience.
Selected group exhibitions
2023 Exhibition Hate Modern
UK, London, Felt Photographic Gallery
2022 Exhibition No words
UK, London, PL Photographу Studio
2022 Exhibition “Fragile Feminity”
Moscow, Russia, Marina Balkizova Art Studio Gallery
2022 Exhibition “Honesty in Diversity”
Marina Balkizova Art Studio Gallery
2022 Activist art “Tok Maraphone” with the work from “Being (in love with) women” project
Petersburg, Russia, Deistvie LGBT-Center
2021 Lesbiennale with “If we had been differently” series, part of “Being (in love with) women”
Brussel, Belgium, Rainbow House
2020 Diaries. Loosenart International Group Exhibition with “Mom’s Letters” series
Rome, Italy, Millepiani Gallery
Media
2022 Inability to remain silent about the No Words exhibition. Maia Ulchin, SygMa
2022 “Exhibition Fragile Feminity”. Good paper
2022 Conversation on subjectivity. The exhibition 'Honesty in diversity'. Zoe Bogdanets, SygMa
2020 Interview about visual storytelling “Photo VS text: how photographic stories are making” (Gorbunov school magazine (rus)
Performances, lectures and other activities (selected)
2022 Ted-talk about the possibilities of phototherapy as a self-help practice.
St Petersburg, Sevcabel. The non-profit event, all proceeds from tickets went to help Ukrainian refugees
2020 “A miner’s bird in the field: how to communicate and write about heroes from vulnerable groups who have asked for help themselves”. Author’s lecture on the theory and practice of journalism and documentary works. Recorded with the necessary cuts for ethical reasons.
The lecture was a part of my nonprofit mentoring at the Summer School Crisis Journalism Workshop: a ten-day crisis psychology intensive course for journalists from the team of the INGO Crisis Centre for Women.
St Petersburg and online, Summer school
2020 A phototherapy lecture on how to regain a sense of body and body support in isolation, how to support yourself with simple selfies techniques, especially if you are a woman or someone with female gender socialization, and how to help yourself experience your days as a personal journey without leaving your apartment in pandemia.
Petersburg, Ossi Bar
2019-2020 Electra Complex. The first Russian documentary play about the sexual abuse of children and adolescents.
Participating as an actress, heroine, and author of autobiographical texts that formed the basis of the play. Non-profit work.
St Petersburg and Moscow
2019 “Watching and Seeing” Blitz: How Gentle Witnessing Through Photography Helps in Therapeutic Work (recording)
IV Petersburg narrative conference “Contexts and details”, St Petersburg and online
2019 Performance of the poetry brigade “dini | fox” at a concert in support of the law of domestic violence
St Petersburg, Eve’s Ribs Feminist Festival
2019 Poetry Evening More than three: poetic readings (first performance under a real name)
St Petersburg, Artmuse Museum of Contemporary Art
2019 The lecture “Fragments. How Childhood Abuse Affects All Life Afterwards” as part of the “How to Save Women in Russia” lecture series.
Tomsk/online
2019 Readings from the documentary prose series “Fragments” as a guest of the show “The Fox in the Den"
St Petersburg, loft-space Nora М
2018 Readings from the documentary prose series “Fragments” as a guest of the show “Lisitsa: poems and prose”
St Petersburg, Niko bar
Тeaching
2014 Charity Fund Mitten Museum. Author’s photography course for adults “Family Story Workshop”. St Petersburg, Russia
2014 Other Worlds Space. Author’s workshop on visual storytelling “How to catch a big fish and bring back a story from the trip”. St Petersburg, Russia
2013, 2017, 2018 Children’s camp Primorsky, Nonprofit teaching photography and journalism in the format of groups. Ukraine, Arabatskaya Strelka
2014 Federal Network of Educational Centres Unium, teaching photography to teenagers. St Petersburg, Russia
2013–2014 Charity Fund Teply Dom, a camp for families in difficult life situations. Nonprofit work with children and adults from crisis families as a phototherapy assistant. St Petersburg, Russia
Education
2020-2021 International School of Art Therapy, Russian Art Therapy Association, course “Art-Hugge. Multimodal therapy with creativity as a practice of simple steps”. Teachers Alyona Burenkova, Keith Loring, Dilya Gazizova, etc. Certificate of training in the amount of 72 hours
2020 Professional development programme at the VI All-Russian Festival Psychological Practice in Russia, Imaton Institute of Practical Psychologу (30 hours). Certificate of Professional Development No. 43/48/20. St Petersburg, Russia
2019-2020 “Phototherapy. Using photography in a phototherapy”. Imaton Institute of Practical Psychologу. St Petersburg, Russia
2014 Russian Institute for Complex Fairy Tale Therapy, training within the framework of the programme for studying the author’s method of complex fairy-tale therapy (72 hours). Certificate No. 17-LM/58, qualification “Storyteller” with the right to teach an optional course on storytelling therapy at schools. St Petersburg, Russia
2013-2014: Theory and practice of modern photography, curated by Igor Lebedev, Fotodepartament Institute. St Petersburg, Russia
2013 Photography in Hermitage, curated by Igor Lebedev. St Petersburg, Russia
2013 Insight Psychological Volunteer Club, Volunteer School. A course of training, seminars and workshops on working with children, teenagers and elderly people (age psychology, team building, making contact, conflictology). St Petersburg, Russia
2012: Andreas Rost and Frank Gaudlitz workshop. “On the poetry of Arno Fischer’s documentary method”. Curator Andreas Rost. State Museum and Exhibition Centre ROSPHOTO, Goethe Institute. St Petersburg, Russia
2011-2013: Faculty of Photojournalism in the name of U.A. Galperin, curated by Anna Fedotova, diploma in media photography. St Petersburg, Russiа
2005-2006 Gorky Moscow Institute of Literature, Department of Literary Skills, Department of Poetry. Moscow, Russia
1998-2004 Samara State Pedagogical University (now PGSGA), Department of Philology, Department of Journalism. Samara, Russia
Works are held in several private collections in the UK, Cyprus and Russia