A contemporary Kazakhstani artist, architect, designer, screenwriter, director, producer, production designer, and costume designer; a member of the RJ Rekords group and founder of the children’s art school “MART — Workshop of Artistic Creativity.” Her works include architectural projects, film scripts, video art, and animation. Key methods in Y. Levitskaya’s practice cover the synthesis of architectural thinking, graphic collage, and cinematic language; montage, digital processing, and found footage. Key themes are memory, identity, and media noise.
She studied at the Children’s Art School (Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk, 1979–1981), the Almaty Institute of Architecture and Civil Engineering (specialising in residential and public architecture, 1983–1990), and the Kazakh National Academy of Arts named after Temirbek Zhurgenov (Faculty of Cinema and Television, specialising in animation direction, 1999–2003). In 2002, Y. Levitskaya received third prize at the “Inventory” Video Festival for her video art “Cow” (in collaboration with R. Arefiev and K. Timoshenko, Almaty); third prize at the “Art Against Poverty” Documentary Film Competition for the film “Money Phantom” (in collaboration with R. Arefiev, Almaty); and first prize at the “Souvenir of Kazakhstan” project for the work “Beshbarmak” (as part of the RJ Rekords group).
Among Y. Levitskaya’s early works were papier-mâché, breadcrumb, textile, and porcelain dolls. Through these playful forms, she juxtaposed myth and reality, exploring themes of the historical past and cultural memory (“The Silk Road,” 2001) and identity (“Varsenika, Wife of a Kazakh but Not Kazakh,” 1997). Her dolls sometimes appeared in her animated films (“Baba Yaga — Aviation Pioneer,” 2001) or transformed into game characters (“Beshbarmak,” part of the project “Untitled,” RJ Rekords, 2002). In her video works, she used the montage of documentary and graphic footage to explore everyday life (“Within Means,” 2001) and to playfully critique the mundane (“Cow,” with R. Arefiev and K. Timoshenko, 2002).
Y. Levitskaya’s works were shown in Kazakhstan and abroad: the exhibition of the Children’s Art School (Local History Museum Hall, Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk, 1979); the exhibition of masks (“Arman” Cinema, Almaty, 1996); “Dolls — Parallel World” (“ASSIA” Salon, Almaty, 2001); the “Tengri-Umai” International Art Festival (Almaty, 2002); and the SCCA “Inventory” Video Art Festival (German Theatre, Almaty, 2002). She also worked as a production designer and producer on the films “Uranium Typhoon” (2011), “Harmony Lessons” (2013), “Arūakh” (2018), and “Sex, Fear and Hamburgers” (2024).
Information about Y. Levitskaya is stored in the collection of the Documentation project – the archive of the Soros Center for Contemporary Art – Almaty (SCCA).
Photograph provided by Yuliya Levitskaya