LENSCRATCH - Fine Art Photography Daily

HANDMADE ARTIST BOOKS WEEK: Nata Drachinskaya by Laila NaharMay 25, 2026

BINOM by Nata Drachinskaya first came onto my radar when it was selected as a Finalist for the APhF:24 Dummy Award at the Athens Photo Festival. I began following the book closely, which emerges from a deeply personal grief and unfolds into a layered narrative intertwining family life with political realities and state-imposed secrecy. Parallel storylines are portrayed with notable sensitivity and artistry. In 2025, this extraordinary artist book went on to win the LUMA Rencontres Dummy Book Award. I wanted to learn more about how Nata transformed her personal grief into such a compelling work, as well as her unique practice of art using concrete and paper. It has been a privilege to connect with this multidisciplinary artist and to interview her for the readers of Lenscratch.com.

Tell us about your growing up. From the background of sculpture and mixed media, how did you get into the art of artist-book?

Everything in my art practice began with photography. Before entering the field of contemporary art, I originally earned a degree in economics in Moscow and later spent more than ten years working in international communication agencies. This experience shaped my understanding of visual structure and narrative construction, which later became important for my artistic work.

I began working with photography in 2014 as a self-taught photographer, specializing in portrait and event photography. I was equally interested in working with studio lighting and in making lifestyle images. Later, I taught photography at a college in Moscow while continuing to study the language and history of contemporary photography. During that time I read extensively; one important influence was Charlotte Cotton’s Photography as Contemporary Art, which helped me understand photography as a conceptual medium rather than only a technical practice.

Later, I completed a two-year program at the Institute of Contemporary Art in Moscow, where I expanded my practice beyond photography and began working with sculpture, mixed media, installation, and performance. When I started working on Binom in 2019, it became clear to me that the project required the form of an artist’s book.

In 2022, my family left Russia and moved between several countries. I brought all my photographic equipment with me, but I realized that I could no longer continue working with photography in the same way as before. Something in my relationship to the medium had changed. Since then, my practice has become more materially grounded, and I have worked more intensively with paper, concrete, and object-based forms. At the same time, photography remains central to my thinking and continues to influence the way I work across different media.

Parallel storylines are depicted masterfully in the structure and elements of your extraordinary artist book BINOM. You created a hybrid narrative framework that reconstructs familial, social and political duality using research of archival materials, mathematics/coding, imagery and family photographs. How did you choose design and layout? Did your background in sculpture influence the form of this book?

In my practice, the concept determines the form of the work. Once I formulated the central idea of the project – duality – it became clear that the book would consist of two parallel parts.

The foundation of the work is my family history, which is intertwined with the broader political history of the country. When these two narrative lines are placed side by side, their contradictions become especially visible, creating tension within the structure of the book.

My experience with sculpture and collage allowed me to approach the photobook as a spatial object rather than only a sequence of images. Editing the book felt similar to stone carving: removing everything that was unnecessary and keeping only what was essential for the narrative.

When did you start working on BINOM? You did extensive research and blend archival material to reconstruct and reimagine the past. Can you tell us about your research for the work? Working with this book is reliving the trauma of your personal loss all over again. How did you cope?

In 2019, I opened the box containing my father’s photographic archive with the intention of finally working through the trauma connected to his suicide in 2001. The archive included printed photographs, slides, more than thirty black-and-white films, and several personal documents and belongings. Later, I read extensively, including memoirs by former Soviet officers, declassified materials, books about coding and ciphering that helped me better understand the historical and technical context.

Over the following two years, I worked intensively with the project materials through visual experimentation in sculpture, collage and even performance. At some point I realized that I was repeatedly encountering the same emotional barrier connected to my father’s death. However, I felt that there was something more important I needed to formulate and share.

In the spring of 2022, after leaving Russia, I zoomed out and began to understand what that “something” was. I saw more clearly how duality, parallel realities, and selective attention had been shaped during the Soviet period under ideological pressure, and how this condition continues to resonate today. It was the moment I formulated the project’s central concept. Also, I felt that I had finally processed my personal trauma.

Tell us your journey from the dummy of BINOM to the production artist book. How did ‘Photobook as Object’ workshop help shape the concept? Tell us your experience of the residency with Reminders Photography Stronghold (RPS) for the production.

When travel became possible again after the pandemic, I was finally able to attend the Photobook as Object workshop in the autumn of 2022. The workshop was an
important stage in the development of the project. When I arrived, the conceptual structure and key elements of the visual narrative were already clear to me. Working with a curator as strong as Yumi Goto was a formative experience in the development of the project.

After the workshop, I continued researching the historical context and refining the photographic sequence. At the same time, I experimented with materials and the construction of the box. Initially, I planned to self-publish the book in California, but it was difficult to find production partners willing to work with a small artist-book edition and a custom layout. Print-on-demand services also could not accommodate the technical requirements of the project.

Later, I received an invitation from Reminders Photography Stronghold to produce the book during a residency in Tokyo. With the support of Yumi Goto and the RPS, it was possible to complete the self-published edition under conditions that supported the material and structural complexity of the project. During the residency I produced 92 copies of Binom. The process involved developing an efficient workflow for printing, folding, binding, and assembling the inserts. Alongside the production period, I also had a solo exhibition of Binom, beautifully curated by Miki Hasegawa, whose thoughtful curatorial approach and strong support were essential in making the exhibition possible. Visitors could see both the installation and the bookmaking process itself. The residency became an important moment in completing the artist edition and sharing the work with an audience.

What are you working on now? Who has been inspiring you lately?

I am currently working on another family-based project that reflects on how people maintain inner grounding during periods of instability. The project focuses on my great grandfather, who was imprisoned for more than eight years in a Stalin-era labor camp as a political prisoner after participating in a reading group and studying Indian philosophical texts. Despite this experience, he preserved his belief in kindness, mutual support, the importance of education and self-development, and ethical responsibility. I am interested in exploring how these values can resonate today.

As for inspiration, I am currently inspired by athletes and by sport more generally. My daughter is a competitive acrobatic gymnast, and I admire her consistency, effort, and determination. I was also influenced by Haruki Murakami’s book What I Talk About When I Talk About Running, where he compares long-distance running with the discipline of writing. I find this comparison very close to artistic practice. I am also inspired by the storytelling platform The Moth, which demonstrates how personal narratives can become a powerful tool for reflection and connection.

Nata Drachinskaya is a visual artist working across sculpture, photography, artist books, and collage-based practices. Born in the USSR and raised in Moscow, in 2022 she moved to Armenia, then to the UAE, and now lives in California.

She studied at the Institute of Contemporary Art in Moscow and previously worked as a photographer and photography teacher. Her practice explores memory, identity, experiences of trauma and recovery, and the relationship between personal stories and larger historical narratives.

Her photobook Binom was a finalist of the Photobook Award EI (2023), APhF Dummy Award (2024), and later received the LUMA Rencontres Dummy Book Award (2025). She has exhibited at the Multimedia Art Museum (Moscow, Russia), Winzavod (Moscow, Russia), MMOMA (Moscow, Russia), Nick Gallery (Pécs, Hungary), Reminders Photography Stronghold (Tokyo and Kyoto, Japan), the Pacific Art League (Palo Alto, USA), Griffin Museum of Photography (Winchester, USA) and New Museum (Los Gatos, USA). She has participated in artist residencies in Russia, Georgia, Hungary, and Japan.

Follow Nata Drachinskaya:

Website Nata Drachinskaya

Instagram https://www.instagram.com/drachinskaya/

How to purchase (if still available)

Available at Reminders Photography Project

Tags: Handmade Artist Book, Laila Nahar, Nata Drachinskaya