Few photographers capture the surreal intimacy of everyday life quite like Julie Poly. Born Yulia Polyashchenko in Stakhanov and shaped by the visual language of Kharkiv, where she studied and took her first photographs at the local horse market, the Ukrainian artist has built a practice that merges documentary grit with high-fashion absurdity. Before the full-scale invasion forced her to relocate to Berlin, Poly was based in Kyiv, developing her now-signature style, one that filters eroticism, pop culture, and Slavic mundanity through a lens that’s as sharp as it is playful.
Whether she’s restaging a scene in a Soviet-era arcade or spotlighting the low-glamour reality of Ukraine’s railways, Poly’s images resist categorisation. Her work moves easily between fashion editorials (Vogue, i-D, NUMERO) and independent art spaces, where she’s known for turning exhibitions into immersive, performative statements. In 2021, she launched Hrishnytsia, an erotic zine platforming Ukrainian artists working at the intersection of sexuality, identity, and gender.
Now, with exhibitions across Europe and an ever-expanding portfolio of personal and commissioned work, Poly continues to reframe post-Soviet aesthetics with wit, affection, and a deliberately skewed point of view. Schön! caught up with the artist to talk about creative process, memory, and making beauty out of banality.
Glamcult, 2024
Where were you born, and what are your earliest childhood memories?
I was born in Stakhanov, now called Kadiivka, in the Luhansk region of Ukraine. One of my earliest memories is connected to photography — my dad’s best friend was an amateur photographer and used to take pictures of me all the time. I remember being afraid of the camera as a toddler; in the earliest photos, I’m often crying. The images were actually beautiful. Later, of course, everything changed. At the age of ten, I joined a local film photography club and started taking my own pictures — mostly extractivist landscapes, coal mines, and miners. That’s how photography first entered my life, rooted in the visual language of the world I grew up in.
How did your journey into photography and visual art begin?
Later, I moved to Kharkiv, where I became immersed in the local art scene and found myself surrounded by small, independent art groups and initiatives. I was deeply inspired by the Kharkiv School of Photography, especially its bold use of documentary and conceptual strategies. This experience shaped not only my aesthetics but also my understanding of photography as a powerful tool to explore identity, eroticism, and the visual codes of everyday Ukrainian life.
Who or what are your biggest influences, both within Ukraine and globally?
Nan Goldin and Borys Mikhailov.
Vogue Futurespecture, 2021
How does your background in Ukraine shape the aesthetics and themes in your work?
I grew up in post-industrial Eastern Ukraine, surrounded by raw everyday aesthetics — leopard prints, fake flowers, long nails, linoleum floors. Later, Kharkiv and the local photo scene shaped my taste for mixing documentary with performance. My work reflects what I see around me: intimacy, class, gender, eroticism — all through a very local, very Ukrainian lens.
Your imagery often blends satire with glamour. How do you strike that balance?
My background in fashion photography plays a big role here — I used to shoot for magazines like Vogue, Dazed, i-D, and others. At the same time, I have roots in documentary photography, so I’ve always been interested in blurring the line between reality and fiction. I love working with staged imagery — creating glossy, hyper-stylised scenes that still carry something raw or uncomfortable underneath. Humor and glamor for me are tools: they let me speak about complex things that are usually difficult to talk about .
Femininity and female identity are central to your work. What do you hope viewers take away from how you portray women?
I want to deconstruct the expectations placed on women — especially those shaped by patriarchal norms and the male gaze. My approach is to show femininity from a position of power. It’s about reclaiming the image, showing women as they define themselves, not how they’re supposed to be seen. That’s also how I explore my own experience and identity as a woman — through strength, vulnerability, sexuality, and contradiction, but always on my own terms.
Warriors, 2023
How do you approach nostalgia, especially the aesthetics of post-Soviet life, without falling into cliché?
For me, it’s not about nostalgia at all — it’s about working with memory. Both personal and collective. I return to familiar visuals and cultural codes not to romanticise the past, but to process it. I’m interested in how memory shapes identity, desire, and visual language. I don’t try to erase or beautify that experience — I want to face it, speak through it, and reframe it on my own terms.
Your work is very cinematic. Do you take inspiration from film or pop culture when crafting your scenes?
I rarely get inspired by other photography — I’m much more drawn to life itself, pop culture, and other mediums. I love doing research, digging into archives, finding visual codes in unexpected places. Sometimes it’s old commercials, music videos, or everyday life aesthetics. It’s less about referencing specific films and more about building scenes that feel alive for me.
Can you walk us through your creative process—from concept to finished photo?
It really depends on the project. Sometimes the process is fast and intuitive, almost like working with ready-mades. Other times it takes years. For example, my Ukrzaliznytsia book came out in 2020 — I spent one year shooting and another year working on the layout and production. I thought that project was finished, but after the full-scale war started, I felt the need to revisit it. In 2025, I shot a new chapter, this time shaped by military realities and wartime train journeys. The meaning of Ukrzaliznytsia changed completely, and so did my relationship with the work.
So the process can be long and layered. It involves research, building the right team, finding the right tools, and waiting for the moment when form and emotion align. Each project demands its own rhythm.
Vogue Futurespecture, 2021
Do you work more instinctively or meticulously plan each element of your compositions?
I’m a planning freak. I need everything to be mapped out in detail before the shoot — even the tiniest elements. Only after that structure is in place can I allow intuition to take over. That foundation gives me the freedom to improvise. The creative flow opens up when I know every element has been carefully thought through — from casting and location to styling and props. For me, control and spontaneity aren’t opposites — they depend on each other.
Has your work changed in response to the ongoing war in Ukraine?
Of course it has. My work is deeply rooted in everyday life, in what surrounds me, and when that reality changes so drastically, my practice shifts with it. The core themes of my body of work remain — identity, intimacy, sexuality — but the context is completely different now.
I continued working on Hrishnytsia during the war, but the third issue was a direct response to the full-scale invasion. It explored intimate communication in wartime and became a charity edition to support the Ukrainian army. I also returned to my Ukrzaliznytsia project, thinking it was finished, only to realise I needed to revisit it from this new wartime perspective. Now it includes images shaped by displacement, military trains, and the changing role of railway travel in Ukraine.
Right now I’m also working on a large-scale video game project focused on information warfare and propaganda. It’s a new medium for me, but still driven by the same urge — to explore systems of control, visibility, and power through visual language.
What role do you believe art and satire can play in times of political unrest?
In times of war, art becomes a tool for resistance, memory, and survival. But more than that, it becomes a way to cope. Humour, especially dark humour, is sometimes the only thing holding the nervous system together. It helps you breathe when everything feels unbearable.
It allows us to speak about trauma without being consumed by it. It disarms fear, exposes the absurdity of violence and power, and gives us back some form of control.
Send Nudes, 2021
Are there any challenges you’ve faced as an artist working in or representing Ukraine internationally?
Yes. There’s a constant expectation to represent trauma — as if being a Ukrainian artist means only speaking about war and pain. Another challenge is being exoticised or reduced to a “post-Soviet aesthetic,” which flattens the work and erases context. Sometimes my work is read through a Western lens that flattens it into “post-Soviet cool” or “weird Slavic aesthetic,” ignoring the deeper context. So I often feel the need to explain myself twice — to translate not just language, but nuance, history, and intention.
That said, this doesn’t happen all the time. In my practice, these situations have been rare — but they do exist and they leave a mark.
Which project or shoot are you most proud of, and why?
I hope the project I’m most proud of is still ahead — there’s a lot I want to do. But if I had to choose now, it would be Ukrzaliznytsia. It’s the closest to me emotionally. It grew out of my own lived experience, evolved over the years, and keeps transforming with everything that’s happening in Ukraine. It’s not just a photo series — it’s a long conversation with my past, my country, and how we move through it.
Are there any artists or creatives you’d love to collaborate with in the future?
I actually collaborate all the time — it’s a big part of my practice. Whether it’s for Hrishnytsia or other projects, I constantly work with artists, writers, stylists, and performers.
How do you see your work evolving over the next few years?
I see it expanding across different mediums. Photography will always be my base, and I want to keep exploring new formats, reach new audiences, and stay radically honest with myself.
Are there themes or ideas you haven’t explored yet that you’re excited to dive into?
Yes, for sure. But I’d rather not talk about them in advance — I prefer to keep them to myself until they’re ready.
Hrishnytsia 1, Cover Story, 2021
What’s one thing people often misunderstand about your work?
Honestly, I don’t feel widely misunderstood — my audience usually gets what I’m doing. But sometimes, people see something in my work that feels uncomfortably familiar. When someone recognises a visual code, a behaviour, or an atmosphere that mirrors their own world, it can trigger a strong reaction. Not the people I photograph directly, but those who see themselves in the image and don’t like what it reflects back. That discomfort often comes from a lack of self-irony or resistance to critical reflection.
One of my favourite examples is the first issue of Hrishnytsia. I designed it to look like a flashy erotic magazine — with bold headlines and a sexy cover — mirroring the aesthetics of Playboy-style media. But inside, it featured feminist writing and powerful artworks. It was a conscious intervention into patriarchal visual culture. Some men were genuinely upset: “What is this? I thought there’d be naked girls. I’d never buy this.” That response was perfect — it meant the work hit exactly where it needed to. Watching how pop culture reacts to these kinds of interventions is one of the most rewarding parts of my practice.
What advice would you give to young artists or photographers in Ukraine or elsewhere trying to find their voice?
Do what really interests you. Don’t let others define what’s “right” or “serious” — listen to yourself, your intuition. Learn from what already exists, study different methods and approaches, but don’t be afraid to remix them and create new combinations, new meanings, new languages. People might not understand what you’re doing right away — and that’s okay. Sometimes they just don’t know yet that it’s even possible. You know your direction better than anyone. And yes, good advice from mentors can be gold — but your inner voice is the most important one to follow.
photography. Julie Poly
portrait photography. Gorsad Angel
interview. Sofia Tchkonia
