Maxim Zmeyev (b. 1987, Saint Petersburg) is an artist and photographer based in Marseille, France. Since 2009, he has worked as a photojournalist for regional and international news agencies, including Reuters and AFP, covering political and social upheavals across Russia and Eastern Europe. In 2021, he graduated from the Rodchenko School of Photography and Multimedia in Moscow, where he developed a more experimental and research-driven artistic practice.
Following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, he left the country and was later granted refugee status in France.
His work has been shown internationally, including a solo presentation at Getxophoto (Getxo, Spain, 2024), and exhibitions at Internationale Photoszene Cologne (Germany), DongGang International Photo Festival (Republic of Korea), and the 1st International Biennale “Art for the Future” (Russia), as well as in France, the United Kingdom, Italy, Greece, Thailand, and Russia. His work has been published in Der Greif, Float Photo Magazine, F-Stop, and TIMES VII (87 Gallery, UK). His works are held in the collection of the Multimedia Art Museum, Moscow (MAMM), and in private European collections. In 2024, he received support from the Agency of Artists in Exile and the Institut français.
Selected group exhibition
2025
Biennale de l’Image Tangible
Le 100 ECS, Paris (FR)
Noviembre Fotográfico
FotoFac Galería, Fábrica de Arte Cubano, Havana (CU)
One to One
Galerie Dix9, Paris (FR)
(Made Anywhere)
Fondation Fimico, Paris (FR)
In-Between Identities
MASA Gallery, Riga (LV)
Art-O-Rama
Friche la Belle de Mai, Marseille (FR)
Artspace Bremerhaven
Alte Bürger, Bremerhaven (DE)
DongGang International Photo Festival
DongGang Museum of Photography, Yeongwol (KR)
Hybrid'Art – Contemporary Art Fair
Espace Gagarine, Port-de-Bouc (FR)
2024
Getxophoto International Image Festival
Romo Kultur Etxea , Getxo (ES)
Festival Visions d’exil Censorship
Provence Art Contemporain, Marseille (FR)
Archifoto. Architecture under Construction
La Chambre, Strasbourg (FR)
2023
Internationale Photoszene Cologne Festival
Kunsträume der Michael Horbach Stiftung, Cologne (DE)
Small File Photo Festival
The Photographer’s Gallery, London (GB)
Rome art Week, Forgotten place
Millepiani, Rome (IT)
Paper
The European Center, Athens (GR)
Uchi-Soto
SAGE Gallery, Bangkok (TH)
Festival 9ph-Photographie et image contemporaine
Factatory, Lyon (FR)
2021
The 1st international Biennale Art for the Future
Multimedia Art Museum, Moscow (RU)
Blazar Young Contemporary Art Fair
Museum of Moscow, Moscow (RU)
The Exhibition of 2 Moscow Art Prize nominees
Media center Zaryadye Park, Moscow (RU)
Time Out of Joint
The Ekaterina Cultural Foundation, Moscow (RU)
Osmosis. New aesthetics
Electromuseum, Moscow (RU)
2020
Peacetime
Gorky Park Museum, Moscow (RU)
Creating an environment
Art-Space-Hopping, Moscow (RU)
Publication
2025
Where Flowers Bloom 7
Space x Time (CH)
Float Photo Magazine
Group Online exhibition «Whispering Shadows»
2024
Der-Greif
Artist Blog (DE)
87 Gallery
TIMES VII: Shelter (GB)
2023
Der-Greif
Guest Room (DE)
See-zeen
Issue #8 (USA)
F-Stop
Issue #119
Residences
2024
Agency of artists in exile
Marseille (FR)
Grants and scholarships
2024
French Institute
Support for Russian artists in exile (FR)
Awards
2020
Finalist of International contest Blurring the Lines
Paris (FR)
Education
2021
Rodchenko Art School
Moscow (RU)
2014
Saint - Petersburg State University Faculty of Journalism
Media designs information technologies, St. Petersburg (RU)
My practice approaches video games as systems that produce images, behaviour, and social models. What interests me is not video game aesthetics in itself, but the way digital worlds program vision, distribute roles, impose norms, and translate desire, belonging, and control into visual form. In-game photography becomes for me not a means of making “beautiful pictures,” but a method of analysis and critique: a way of opening these structures from within. Working with game archives, typologies, and image sequences, I examine how virtual environments already register the political, bureaucratic, and cultural mechanisms that shape life beyond the screen.
Biography