Usva Inei is a trans non-binary visual and performance artist. They primarily work through various printmaking approaches, such as etching, drypoint, linocut, and monoprint, often combining these with painting, collage, and sculpture. Working from their lived experiences as a Finnish-born Russian immigrant and a queer individual, Usva’s art practice addresses current events and ongoing political discourses, exploring themes of misuse of power, suppression of freedom of speech, and generational trauma. The main focus of their work is the investigating what it means to be a queer Russian immigrant amongst today’s complex political situation, in which Russian people are both aggressors in a violent war and victims of brutal state propaganda.

In their work, Usva often presents a clash of the public and the private, the personal and the political, the safe and the jarring. For example, they mix imagery from violent suppression of protests by police with domestic textiles and references to home life. In making such unexpected connections, the aim is to push the audience to make sense of and ask questions about social structures and the individual as part of them. A lot of Usva’s source materials are further a combination of personal photographs and memories with newsreel imagery and political analyses. Through this, Usva hopes to gain a better understanding of culture and politics but also explore identity politics as a part of that context.

Usva enjoys experimenting with boundaries, possibilities, and combinations of various media. This includes pushing how a printing press may be used, or stretching a canvas “incorrectly” onto found materials. In working with different materials, Usva aims to expand approaches to art-making, as well as encourage audiences to engage with art in different ways. In finding new ways to ask questions, Usva hopes to add to our communal understanding of the world around us.

Art aducation is a central part of Usva’s art practice. They regularly teach both on academic and artistic courses, as well as run various art-based workshops. Usva further has a background in academia and currently engages in transdisciplinary research projects as an independet art-based researcher.

Usva is a Russian immigrant, who partially grew up in Finland and is currently based in London, UK.

For a list of publications and a closer look at my academic practice, please see here.

For regular updates on my art practice, please follow me on instagram.