2020 Sony World Photography Awards - Winner, Discovery, Professional Competition
(B.1983, Armavir, USSR) Maria Kokunova is an artist who works with photography, collage, appropriation images and document performance art. She lives and works in Saint-Petersburg, Russia. The problem of personality and the mechanism of subject constitution are the main themes laying in the sphere of her interests. In her works, Maria focuses on the process of self-reflection and searches for visual metaphors to be used for examining her life in order to translate the emotional and psychological state into some visual form. Instead of forcing herself into a formal framework, she uses various visual modes and employs a greater variety of photographic techniques and styles to create a complete visual image. Maria Kokunova has won numerous awards, including being a finalist for 2020 Sony World Photography Awards (Professional competition's Discovery category), selected in “ULTRA”, Sedici; New Talents, PEP, Germany; nominee of PhotogrVphy Grant (2020, 2019), Riga Photomonth 2020, Urbanautica, Bird in Flight Prize. Her works were published on Fisheye Magazine, PH Museum, Der Grief, Urbanautica, AINT-BAD, PHROOM, YOGURT, FK Magazine, L'Oeil de la Photographie and other magazines.