The residency builds on her research project Autobiography as Research, or abg: autos (self) – bios (life) – grafein (writing). It is a kind of post-research phase, in which she intends to further develop some of the material from the research, possibly as a lead-up to an application for project grants in May 2027.

During her residency at BUDA, Valentina Stepanova revisits a black-and-white home video from 1988, in which her father filmed her and her mother for the first time. The original voices have disappeared, replaced by a radio broadcast about the Potsdam Conference, causing an intimate family moment to become unintentionally intertwined with wider history. What happens when these images, gestures and absent voices are given a new place in the present, and the past allows itself not only to be viewed, but also to be embodied?

Valentina Stepanova (RU/BE)

Valentina Stepanova is a Brussels-based multidisciplinary artist. Through installations, performance, audiovisual material and experimental narrative forms, she explores themes such as memory, migration, identity and connectedness. In her work, she challenges the boundaries of the traditional documentary and explores the interplay between personal and collective history.