SASHA ZAITSEVA

Sculptor and multidisciplinary artist
Born 1994, Donetsk, Ukraine
Based in Paris, France

BIOGRAPHY

Sasha Zaitseva (b. 1994, Donetsk, Ukraine) is a Paris-based sculptor working across assemblage, wearable sculpture and installation.

Raised in a Russian-Ukrainian family in the Donbas, Zaitseva relocated to Paris in 2014 as war began to reshape her native region. This experience of displacement has become an underlying structural element of her artistic practice.

Zaitseva constructs masks, sculptural objects and installations from found and discarded materials, bringing together objects associated with religion, military history, domestic life and consumer culture. Her works often combine seemingly contradictory visual languages, placing vulnerability alongside protection, tenderness alongside violence, and personal memory alongside collective history.

She describes her masks and headpieces as psychological portraits rather than costumes. Whether worn or presented independently as sculptural objects, they explore the complexities of identity, inherited belief, memory and resistance.

Her work has been exhibited internationally, including at Grand Palais Éphémère and Gaîté Lyrique in Paris, Cité Miroir in Liège, NART in Narva and Field Projects in New York. Her work is held in the permanent collection of the European Patent Office in Munich and has been referenced in UNESCO’s 2022 Global Education Monitoring Report.Zaitseva holds two Master’s degrees from Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne in Fine Arts and Theory of Art and Culture.

ARTIST STATEMENT

Sasha Zaitseva’s practice explores identity, displacement and inherited memory through assemblage, wearable sculpture and installation.

Her material vocabulary originates in the post-Soviet environment in which she grew up and combines cultural and historical references with found objects and fragments of contemporary consumer life. Orthodox imagery, Soviet-era symbols, textiles and discarded materials encounter objects associated with mass production and everyday consumption.

Rather than using these materials nostalgically, Zaitseva creates spaces of confrontation between different histories and systems of meaning.

Her masks and headpieces function as psychological portraits. They hold contradictory states simultaneously: faith and doubt, tenderness and violence, protection and vulnerability, inherited belief and personal resistance. When worn, these tensions are transferred directly onto the body. Presented independently, the works operate as sculptural objects carrying the same psychological charge.

Displacement functions within Zaitseva’s practice not simply as subject matter but as a working method. Through assemblage, fragmented objects, histories and identities are brought together without being forced into resolution.

Her installations extend this process of accumulation into architectural space, transforming individual objects into environments shaped by memory, territory and the experience of living between cultural realities.

SELECTED EXHIBITIONS

2026 Elsewhere — Spanish Burn, Monegros Desert, Spain

2025 L’Épouvantable, La Recyclerie, Paris, France

2024.Inherited Memories, Galerie Espace Canopy, Paris, France

2023–2024 Next Generation Statement, European Patent Office, Munich, Germany

2023 Parcours 333, Gaîté Lyrique, Paris, France Mères d’Exil, Cité Miroir, Liège, Belgium
Can We See the Future in the Past, NART, Narva, Estonia
Nexus Femina, Lieu 37, Paris, France

2022 Stop Wars, Magasins Généraux, Aubervilliers, France
Révélations, Grand Palais Éphémère, Paris, France

2021 Identités Globalisées, Laboratoire 193 Gallery, Paris, France
Covidesign, Greve Museum, Denmark

2020 Reclaimed, Reimagined, Field Projects, New York, USA

RESIDENCIES

2025 Astroneuf Festival, Pantin, France

2023 European Patent Office Residency, Munich, Germany
NORA, Chartreuse de Neuville, France
NART, Narva, Estonia

2022Campus Caribéen des Arts, Martinique

COLLECTIONS

European Patent Office, Munich, Germany — Permanent Collection

Private collections in France, USA, UK and Ukraine

SELECTED PUBLICATIONS

2023 ARTPRESS — Atelier des artistes en exil
Le Monde Diplomatique — Manière de voir : Ukraine

2022 UNESCO — Global Education Monitoring Report

EDUCATION

2019 MA, Theory of Art and Culture
Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne, Paris, France

2018 MA, Fine Arts Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne, Paris, France

AVAILABLE WORKS →

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