EPEX Photo Awards 2026

Contemporary Photographer 2026

ALINA ARASLANOVA / Ukraine

ALINA ARASLANOVA

Visual Artist & Conceptual Photographer

From: Kyiv, Ukraine
Currently based in: Vienna, Austria

Alina Araslanova is a Ukrainian visual artist and conceptual photographer whose work intertwines memory, social experience, and metaphor. Born in Kharkiv, she developed her visual sensitivity through early exposure to film photography. With a background in Information Technologies Design and 16 years in marketing, she combines analytical precision with emotionally driven storytelling. Since graduating from the Kyiv School of Photography in 2018, she has created projects exploring vulnerability, motherhood, trauma, and resilience, including Autism, Frozen Pregnancy, On the Bride Side, Sense of War, and Paper Shelter.

AWARDS & RECOGNITIONS

• GOLD Winner — TIFA Awards 2025 (Paper Shelter)

• Bronze Winner — BIFA Awards 2024 (Paper Shelter, Autism)

• Honorable Mentions — BIFA 2024 (Sense of War, Frozen Pregnancy)

• 1st Jury Prize — Swiss Photo Club (SPC), Vienna, 2024 (Paper Shelter)

• Honorable Mention — Vienna International Photo Award 2024 (Paper Shelter, Frozen Pregnancy)

• Award Recipient — Vienna International Photo Award 2023 (Sense of War)

• Works from Paper Shelter published in 100 Contemporary Ukrainian Photographers (Photo Basel, 2024)

EXHIBITIONS & ART FAIRS

2025

• Art Book Publication — Paper Shelter, FORM Gallery Publisher (February 2025)

• Solo Exhibition — Paper Shelter, LIK Gallery, Vienna (Feb–Mar 2025)

• Deformation of Reality, Kyivphotos-Hall Gallery, Kyiv (April 2025)

• Figurative Abstraction, Kyiv (May 2025)

• art3f International Contemporary Art Fair, Monaco (September 2025)

• “Hungry Eye” Art Fair, Amsterdam (September 2025)

• ART MUC, Munich (October 2025)

• Art Innsbruck, Innsbruck (October 2025)

• “Interstice”, Monat Gallery, Madrid (October 2025)

• “NEW Voices”, Paris (November 2025)

• “EMBER”, Monat Gallery, Madrid (November 2025)

2024

• Il potere delle parole, Medina Gallery, Rome (November 2024)

• ST-ART Strasbourg Photo Fair, Strasbourg (November 2024)

• Gifts of Art, Gallery Cael, Milan (December 2024)

• Publication — 100 Contemporary Ukrainian Photographers presented at Photo Basel (June 2024)

2021–2019

• New Eye, New Art Gallery, Kyiv — On the Bride Side (2021)

• Kyiv Photo Fair, Kyiv (2019)

Instagram: @al_araslanova