Lesia Maruschak

LESIA MARUSCHAK is a research-based artist. Her work is a complex exploration of memory and sensual expression, informing and expanding what it means to create memorials in the age of photography.

Using a narrative approach, her work comprises objects and installations encompassing photographs, paper works, textile figurative sculptures, and film. In three years of practice her works are part of over 50 solo and group photographic exhibitions in nine countries, including 2018 Getxophoto Post Conflict Reframing A Dialogue (Spain), 2018 5th Biennial of Fine Art & Documentary Photography (Spain), Fotofilmic 2019 (Los Angeles, Seoul, Vancouver), 2019 Memorial Holodomor Museum (Ukraine), 2020 Turchin Visual Arts Centre (USA).  Notable collections holding her works are Stanford University (Stanford), Boston University (Boston Athenaeum), Columbia University (New York), Library of Congress (Washington), Phoenix Art Museum (Phoenix), and Library and Archives Canada (Ottawa). Awards and accolades include being shortlisted for the prestigious 2018 Biennal Grant, 2017 Hariban Award and receiving the Governor General of Canada’s Sovereign Medal. She has been an artist in residence at Maine Media Workshops and College (Rockport), lectured at FORMAT19 (Derby), and made special guest appearances at PhotoVenezia (Venice) and the Palm Springs PhotoFestival (Palm Springs).  Her works have been published and written about in numerous publications and by scholars such as Alison Nordström, Mary Anne Redding and Sabina Tanovic. She has received grant for the Shevchenko Foundation, the UNF Foundation, the Franko Foundation and the Wasylyk Foundation.

Lesia is currently working on a portable art memorial bearing witness to two historical events that have become critical aspects of Ukrainian identity in Canada: the 1914-1920 Canadian National Internment Operations, including 4,000 Ukrainians; and, the 1932-33 famine in Soviet Ukraine where more than four million died. This project represents a critical junction in the evolution of her practice and contribution to conversations concerning social justice and human rights through art.

She holds a MA in Ethnography and an MBA in Competitive Intelligence.

Lesia resides and works in Alvena and Ottawa, Canada.