Alexey Yurenev
About Alexey Yurenev
Alexey Yurenev is a photographer and visual researcher interested in how technology shapes the production of knowledge and collective memory. Yurenev holds an MA in Photography & Society from the Royal Academy of Art, The Hague, and is currently based in New York City.
He currently teaches at the ICP (International Center of Photography, New York) and Columbia University.
Alexey Yurenev’s Photographic Approach
Born in the USSR, a country that no longer exists, and having emigrated to New York as a teenager, he has firsthand experience of the dislocation of memory and identity—an experience that has profoundly influenced his practice. As a photographer and visual researcher, his work is rooted in the exploration of memory, truth, and the production of knowledge. By engaging with various mediums such as photography, video, archives, and machine learning, he develops multi-vocal methodologies that challenge established cultural narratives.
By juxtaposing personal experiences with broader historical and sociopolitical contexts, he invites viewers to question their own perceptions of truth. Working across a range of mediums, he explores the intersection of technology and the mediation of memory, examining how advancements in communication tools shape our ability to remember and interpret the past. His artistic practice is ultimately an invitation to critically reflect on the multiple truths that construct our collective memory.
Since 2019, Yurenev has been working on a visual research project, Silent Hero, investigating the capacities and limitations of technologies such as machine learning, photography, forensic imaging, and survivor interviews in generating proximity to historical events—specifically a previously unknown family episode from World War II. In this project, Alexey Yurenev embarks on a journey through history, space, and time to renegotiate the narrative of his ancestor’s wartime experience and fill the void left by his grandfather’s passing. By combining machine learning, family photographs, archives, interviews with Red Army veterans, and forensic research, Silent Hero explores how these methods shape knowledge and memory.
Alexey Yurenev’s Exhibitions, Residencies, and Publications
Alexey Yurenev’s documentary projects have been published in The New York Times, National Geographic, Topic, and FOAM magazine. His work has been recognized by organizations such as Photographer of the Year International, Silurian Society of New York, the Dummy Award '24, and has been nominated for an EMMY and Shorty Awards. His work has been exhibited at FOAM Museum and is part of the Johns Hopkins University Special Collections.
In 2020, Yurenev co-founded FOTODEMIC.org, a platform dedicated to innovative visual strategies, and became a faculty member at the International Center of Photography in New York.
He has also participated in several artist residencies in 2024, such as Arts Letters and Numbers in Averill Park (New York), Reflexions 2.0 at Landskrona Photo Festival (Sweden), and Reflexions 2.0 in Venice (Italy). His project Silent Hero resulted in the book Seeing Against Seeing, the graphic novel 17.VII.44, and the short film No One is Forgotten.
His work Silent Hero (2019) is exhibited at Hangar as part of the group show Aimagine – Photography and Generative Images from January to June 2025.
