TITLE: MAN IN THE CITY / THE CITY IN MAN

Nowadays, a city is a machine for living; it is an endlessly mechanized environment where man is but a cog in this complex construction, in this perpetual motion machine rolling on and on, blurring faces and leaving only shadows instead along the way. Without even noticing it, we blend into our environment, and are no longer separate, individual structures, as we grow into pedestrian tunnels, as we become petrified details of sculptures, or turn into barely visible reflections in shop and skyscraper windows. Whereas the big city seems to be gaining a body of its own – looking at the world with its windows wide open, reaching for the sky as its high-rises stand proudly towering over people beneath. So it has come to a point where it is hard to tell if it is Man who lives in the City or if it is the City that lives in Man?

AUTHOR: Evgeniya Strygina (United Kingdom)

Evgeniya Strygina (b. 1989) is a London-based contemporary artist who specialises in landscape and architecture photography as she captures urban and natural environments to highlight both their relation to and their autonomy from human beings.

Following her early essays in film and digital photography as a teenager, Evgeniya took a real interest in the art of picture-taking while studying for her degrees in journalism and Spanish in Moscow. After graduating, she completed two courses at the Fine Art Photography School, also in the Russian capital, and a year-long course on contemporary art theory and practice at the Free Workshops, Moscow Museum of Modern Art (MMOMA).

A perfectionist in her work, Evgeniya has stuck to digital photography, a medium she believes helps her attain the result she is after as she is prepared to spend hours making dozens of shots to get the few mesmerising images that would satisfy her.

​Evgeniya took part in at least a dozen group exhibitions in Moscow, including two shows at the MMOMA, art fairs, biennales and festivals, including the Festival of Visual, Sound and Performing Arts in Brindisi, Italy. After taking a hiatus from art photography, Evgeniya relocated to the UK in 2022 to resume her artistic career and work on new projects further exploring her preferred themes such as the nature of space and longing for home.