“Self Portraits” by Katya Akuma, a Migrating Artist

A woman constantly on the move, Katya Akuma reflects her journey as an immigrant through photography that captures the struggle to cultivate identity and a sense of belonging.

With a world-renown fashion photographer, Artur Koff as her father, Katya Akuma carries the genes of creativity and continues the art form as she showcases her work locally and internationally. 

Spending her formative years in Siberia where she was born. Akuma moved to Finland to pursue a Bachelor degree in Art; she later receive a Master’s degree in Fashion Studies from Parsons School of Design, The New School. An interdisciplinary artist, she merges the world of fashion and art, perfectly reflected in a photographic series blending the two art forms. Her work explores fashion as material culture and cultural practice, with an emphasis on identity and individualization, sustainability, and the relation of fashion and time.

Akuma was shaped by her studies and work in the Czech Republic, Finland, United Arab Emirates, and the United States. Currently based in New York her work encompasses the cultures and countries that make up her transnational citizenship. 

In her photography art series titled, “Self Portraits: Prayer for a Safer World”, she depicts her personal experience as an immigrant. Her images investigate identity, reflecting an inherent struggle. Akuma mirrors the challenges of social and individual forms of belonging, displacement, loss, and nostalgia of the concept of home. Through the dramatized display, the psychological effects and struggle of migration speak through her photography art, juxtaposed by the beauty of design. Using cultural-rich materials, masked by a sense of misplaced identity, she covers her face to represent faceless conformity. 

Beneath the façade of the artwork, a visual archive of the original self exists. Her work balances the highs and lows of exploring one’s identity, revealing the ubiquitous fight and then appreciation of finding oneself. “Tired”, “True Self”, “State of Love”and “Piles of Life”, her artistic perspective captures the overlooked with titles that portray the themes of self-discovery and the abstract definition of identity.

A moment frozen in time, the images evoke emotions, slouched over a chair she is seen to be giving up a part of herself, exhausted by the movement of a migrant. The garments are grandiose and galivant across cultural boundaries, a memorial of memories as she backtracks her movements, continually having to plant new roots on the move. 

A wearable art, fashion tells stories through its stitches. Her love for fashion design and continuous support for emerging talent, heavily influences her work. Portrayed are avant-garde designers, Akuma is seen wearing Alexander Riddle, Sho Konishi, and Veronica Lee designs who push structural boundaries through unorthodox size, weight, and material.

Continuously promoting emerging designers, Akuma previously worked with Riddle and Konishi as the Fashion Director for MoMA PopRally x The Bronx. Akuma hand-selected the graduate designers for their dedication to social impact that is prominent and purposeful within their art. A collective to representing the Museum of Modern Art’s Bronx series, Akuma selected them to display at “Beauteous”, delegating the talent space at the Andrew Freedom Home. 

Originally started as an artist collective for Bronx-based artists, the Andrew Freedman Home is paramount and a permanent fixture for the culture of art in the Bronx. A contemporary cultural space of artists, now structured as an Artist Residency and Incubator for small businesses. Future artist in residency, Akuma is set to showcase a solo exhibition in January 2021 at AFH entitled, “Memory of a Migrant"