Born in Moscow in 1976, Masha studied music, literature, and book publishing before leaving for the United States in 1995. In New York Masha joined the Mecca of experimental cinema, the Anthology Film Archives. During several years, she devoted herself to programming film series in various cultural institutions and festivals, and in the meantime worked on her own movies.
After living in New York for seven years, she returned to St. Petersburg, Russia, in 2003 where she continued her artistic career and taught film/video classes at the Department of Liberal Arts and Science (Smolny College) of St. Petersburg State University. In 2016, she entered Academy of Fine Arts, Vienna, Austria, as a PhD in Practice candidate.
Approaching art production as artistic research and collective action, Masha’s artistic and scholarly practices draw on combinations of approaches and spheres such as moving image theory, experimental cinema and DIY video tradition, social science, queer theory, decolonial methodologies, and contemporary art.
Masha holds MFA degree in Film/Video from Milton Avery Graduate School of the Arts, Bard College, New York, and MA in Sociology from European University in St. Petersburg, Russia.
Masha’s films and visual works have been shown at many festivals, screenings and art venues (such as Rotterdam Film Festival, the Tate Modern, Oberhausen International Film Festival, London Film Festival, Manifesta-10, 7th Liverpool Biennial, Center Georges Pompidou, etc.)
At the end of 2015 together with group of artists, activists, and social researches from St. Petersburg, Russia, she co-founded a queer-feminist affinity art group “Unwanted Organisation” (https://faagunwanted.wordpress.com/)