Maxim Zmeyev born 30 March 1987 in Leningrad. Graduated from St.Petersburg College of Tourism and Service, studied journalism at St.Petersburg State University. Since 2009, he has worked as a photojournalist for regional and international news agencies, including the Reuters and AFP news agencies. In 2021 he graduated from the Rodchenko School of Photography and Multimedia. He was forced to leave Russia in 2022 due to Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Now lives and works in Marseille, France.
Solo exhibition
2024
Type 1.5.11.
Getxophoto International Image Festival
Romo Kultur Etxea, Getxo (ES)
2020
Out of the map
Parallel Program of The VII Moscow International Biennale for Young Art
Nii Sreda, Moscow (RU)
Selected group exhibition
2024
Festival Visions d’exil Censorship
Provence Art Contemporain, Marseille (FR)
Archifoto. Architecture under Construction
La Chambre, Strasbourg (FR)
2023
Internationale Photoszene Cologne Festival
Photography in Proggress
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-Photography and contemporary images
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 (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)
Publications
2025
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
Numéro #8 (US)
F-Stop
Numéro #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 artistic practice explores the dynamics between virtual spaces and materiality, examining how digital environments and traditional photographic methodologies hybridize to redefine notions of identity, authority, and cultural narratives. By engaging with video games as both an aesthetic and critical medium, I study how these immersive spaces shape visual representation, contribute to the construction of historical frameworks, and operate within ideological dissemination processes.
At the core of my work is the translation of digital images into physical objects, examining the relationship between the immateriality of virtual worlds and the materiality of photographic processes. This approach allows for an inquiry into the ontological status of images in an era of algorithmic reproducibility and an analysis of the mechanisms through which they acquire artistic or documentary value.
The appropriation and reinterpretation of in-game photographic practices constitute a central aspect of my research. These images, generated within interactive simulations, position video games as both autonomous creative spaces and mechanisms of normative narrative construction. By recontextualizing them through analog processes, I examine the frameworks of legitimization and the visual paradigms that shape image production and reception.
Video games, as social environments, also structure new forms of subjectivity and perceptions of power, where the boundary between engagement and control becomes fluid. Through in-game photography, it is possible to analyze how these digital environments contribute to the normalization of dominant representations while simultaneously enabling spaces of subversion and critical reappropriation.
My practice is also embedded within broader discourses on post-digital art and emerging technological media. By investigating the materialization of images extracted from digital streams, it questions the relevance of the physical medium in a context of increasing dematerialization and considers photography as a hybrid medium oscillating between simulation and tangible inscription.
Thus, my work constitutes an ongoing investigation into the transformations of visibility regimes in the digital age. By intertwining art and video games, photography and virtuality, it examines how these practices reshape our perception of reality and redefine the parameters of contemporary artistic experience.
The works of Maxim Zmeyev are part of the collection of the Multimedia Art Museum, Moscow (MAMM) and private collections.