Ksenia Peretrukhina

Visual artist of the season 2026-27

Ksenia Peretrukhina is a scenographer, visual artist, set designer, lecturer, and contemporary theatre theorist whose work moves between visual art, theatre, opera, and socially engaged performance. At the centre of her practice is an ongoing investigation of space – not only as a physical environment, but as a social and political construct that shapes relationships between bodies, audiences, institutions, and communities.

Her artistic trajectory emerged from both contemporary art and theatre. Having studied at the Contemporary Art School of the Russian State Humanitarian University, the Russian State University of Cinematography (VGIK), and the Institute of Contemporary Art, she developed an interdisciplinary approach that continues to define her work. Later studies at the Theatre Leadership School of the Meyerhold Centre further deepened her engagement with experimental performance and contemporary theatre practices.

Alongside Peretrukhina’s artistic work, she has been active as a researcher and educator, developing workshops dedicated to stage space, ecological approaches to theatre, and socially oriented artistic practices. As a member of the independent collective Theatre of Mutual Operations, she has consistently explored collaborative forms of creation and alternative modes of cultural production. Between 2002 and 2009, she also served as programme director of PUSTO, an outdoor video art festival that brought contemporary moving-image practices into public space.

For more than two decades, Peretrukhina’s work has been presented internationally through exhibitions, performances, and theatre productions. As a visual artist, she has collaborated with leading museums, galleries, and cultural institutions across Europe, North America, and Latin America, including the Garage Museum, the State Tretyakov Gallery, the Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts, White Box Gallery in New York, and Espace Louis Vuitton in Paris, while participating in major international events such as the Moscow and Havana Biennales.

As a scenographer, Peretrukhina has worked extensively with both institutional and independent theatres, creating environments that place equal emphasis on visual composition, dramaturgy, and the audience’s experience of space. Her collaborations have included major theatres and festivals in Russia, Finland, Estonia, Austria, and beyond. In recent years, this practice has expanded into opera, with productions for the Perm Opera and Ballet Theatre, Ural Opera Ballet, and Theater an der Wien.

Peretrukhina’s work has been recognised through nominations and awards including the Kandinsky Prize, the Black Square Prize, the Innovation Prize, and the Golden Mask National Theatre Award. Across disciplines, her practice is united by a commitment to experimentation and by a sustained interest in how artistic spaces can become sites of encounter, collective imagination, and social transformation.