Gomma Photography Grant 2025
After the Burst
Photographer
Liza Beletskaya
After the Burst
15 Feb, 2026
The future resembles a dark room entered blindly. There are no shapes, no colors—only fear.It hides behind a dense veil of uncertainty, where every word, step, and decision may carry a cost. We live in a time when familiar landmarks collapse, and what once felt stable and reliable now appears as a source of threat.In this project, photographs function as sharp, blinding flashes in the night. They pull familiar objects out of darkness, only to distort them—transforming them into symbols of anxiety. The home is no longer a refuge; the street no longer an open space of freedom. Everything we thought we knew is reflected back to us through a crooked mirror of fear.Images drawn from folklore and ancient omens—black cats, empty windows, shadows cast by trees—become anchors of unease. They serve as metaphors for choices made in conditions where the light ahead feels fragile and the surrounding darkness grows denser. Fear rarely appears without cause; it grows from wounds already inflicted, from events that have left lasting scars.
About the photographer
Liza Beletskaya
Elizaveta Beletskaya is a multidisciplinary visual artist based in Novosibirsk, working primarily with photography and collage. Born in 1996 in Khabarovsk, she has lived in Novosibirsk since 2012. She is currently studying at the International Academy of Documentary and Art Photography Fotografika (2023–2026).Her practice centers on emotional states and their relationship to the surrounding environment. She explores how inner transformations are mirrored in external spaces, and how environments, in turn, shape memory, identity, and lived experience.In My Akadem (2023, Yunost Art Residency, Novosibirsk), Beletskaya combines archival photographs with contemporary images of the neighborhood where she spent her student years. The project traces a personal narrative of growing up, examining how places evolve alongside the individual and how past and present accumulate within the landscape.In Urban Environment, she turns her attention to Soviet-era panel housing districts. Through collage “puzzles” assembled from urban fragments, she constructs images that are at once familiar and anonymous, reflecting on the city as a repository of everyday life and collective memory.After the Burst, an ongoing project, investigates anxiety and fear of the future. Using visual metaphors of tension and anticipation, the work examines how internal emotional states shape perception and experience.Her work has been featured in group exhibitions including Artkoko (2025, Belaya Gallery, Novosibirsk) and festivals such as Nizina (2025, Tyumen) and Zin-Zin (2025, Khabarovsk and Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk). She was shortlisted among the top 50 for the Artkoko Award (2025).
