Rehabilitating Beauty: Interview with Venera Kazarova

 Venera Kazarova, Still from Maid Flower, c. 2024, Models: Natalia Novichkova, Ira Mikheishina, Olga Sikorskaya, Photography © Lena Kholkina, Vlada Krasilnikova

By GRACE PALMER April 27, 2025

What does it mean to rehabilitate beauty in the 21^st Century? Venera Kazarova’s work may be the closest thing we have to such an effort. Confronting modernist stoicism by radically delving into the fantastical, Kazarova’s costume-centric performances wholeheartedly embrace beauty. Thanks to Instagram’s algorithm,  I was fortunate to discover Venera’s paper world of sentient flowers, insect reverence, duplicating mouths, and everything in between (www.instagram.com/venera_kazarova/). Embodying a Kafkaesque metamorphosis, her "black polka-dot insect" costume (captioned "Hug Me, Pain") initiated my departure from the "real" world into Kazarova’s Wonderland. Engaging with the uncanny, the nostalgic, and at times the absurd, these performances compel us to reconsider the ‘beauty’ we have elevated in the 21^st Century. Kazarova provides the opportunity to re-engage with our imaginations and see how uniquely beautiful that can be. I spoke with Venera about the ephemeral nature of her costume designs, the importance of dreams, and what new performances we can expect in the coming year.

Palmer: Costume design is the heart of your work, particularly since you started your career in this field. When did you shift to performance work, and how did that enable you to express the conceptual elements of your costume design?

Kazarova: My work is indeed costume-centred — I am originally a fashion designer and received my education in that field. The shift toward performance practice began a few years ago when my costumes quite literally started to "speak" to me. The costume suddenly became more than just a costume; it stepped beyond its boundaries and turned into a story; a concept embodied in costume form. It was through a performative approach that I found a way to work with the costume as a concept, as well as to "bring it to life," which I achieved through stop-motion animation techniques.

Palmer: Almost all of your costume pieces are not ‘wearable’ in the commercial fashion sense. Has that given you more freedom to experiment with silhouettes, shapes, and forms in your clothing?

Kazarova: Of course, yes — I’m not limited by anything. It’s a pure exploration of form and materials, pure art that can be worn but cannot be worn out.

Palmer: Your performance, Art & Reality, explores the idea that art alone cannot resolve humanity’s problems. Do you believe that performance art can highlight the injustices and issues in society – can it indicate the necessity for collaborative change? Does it possess revolutionary potential?

Kazarova: Art truly isn’t capable of solving humanity’s problems, at least that’s how I feel right now. On the other hand, I’m not sure it’s meant to. Art & Reality is my first performance created after I left Russia. It’s also my first performance in my new country—Germany—and it is based on the feeling of powerlessness and exhaustion I’ve been experiencing especially strongly over the past three years due to the war started by Russia. I don’t see revolutionary potential in this performance, nor in art in general (again, at least not at this moment). What I see is irony—irony about how naïve artists can be and how vast the gap truly is between us and the real world. I didn’t always think this way, but what is happening in the world today evokes these exact feelings in me.

Venera Kazarova, Still from Art & Reality, c. 2022, K21, Düsseldorf.

Palmer: Flowers are a regular motif in your work. What does the ‘flower’ mean to you?

Kazarova: For me, a flower is a metaphor for both beauty and strength—some of them are capable of growing through asphalt. A flower is what I think I would have been if I hadn’t been born a human.

Palmer: Dream-like, fantastical, and uncanny are commonly used to describe your performances. Are your performances a way of telling stories without the need to recite them? Is there significance in sharing our ‘dreams’?

Kazarova: That’s absolutely true. Some dreams feel more real to me than reality itself. And sometimes, dreams seem less irrational than real life. There are key things in my life that I came to understand through dreams — I woke up one morning and just knew, this is how it really is. So, for me, dreaming is something truly real, something unmasked by social norms or conventional ways of thinking.

Palmer: How do you decide on the scores for your videos/performances?

Kazarova: Sometimes I work with composers and give them a specific task, and other times I choose existing tracks that already carry the atmosphere I’m looking for.

Palmer: I particularly enjoyed your commercial work, Museum Inhabitants at Tsaritsyno Palace in 2020. What were the audience’s responses to these innocuous performers? How did it affect their engagement with the space?

Kazarova: The audience’s initial reaction was something like stunned silence — as if they had walked into someone else’s home, only to find it inhabited, with the hosts suddenly appearing and catching the visitors off guard. The surrounding space was no longer perceived as a museum or gallery, but as a dwelling—a real, lived-in home.

Venera Kazarova, Still from Museum Inhabitants, c. 2020, Tsaritsyno Palace, Moscow. 

Palmer: Many of the costumes on your Instagram appear to be constructed from paper or card. What is the process like when designing, creating, and wearing these works? How delicate do you have to be?

Kazarova: Most of my costumes on Instagram are made of paper, and they all have just one purpose — to survive the photoshoot. They’re created solely for that purpose, so they need to be just sturdy enough not to fall apart during the process. After the shoot, I take the costume apart and use the pieces to create the next one.

Palmer: How has Instagram played a role in your artistic career?

Kazarova: Instagram has played quite a significant role — at this point, it functions as my personal gallery, open to the entire world.

Palmer: The ‘About’ section on your website discusses the need to ‘rehabilitate beauty’ (www.venerakazarova.art/). What meaning does ‘beauty’ have for you?

Kazarova: Beauty, for me, is something you want to look at—something that nourishes me through the eyes. I spoke about rehabilitation because in contemporary art, beauty is often seen as forbidden territory—something childish, romantic, and not to be taken seriously. But I believe that something beautiful doesn’t have to be meaningless. I would like to create art that can prove that.

Venera Kazarova, Still from Porridge, c. 2024.

Palmer: Does ritual inform your performance ideas? Looking at works like Porridge, I can’t help but think of homeopathic medicinal rituals or ritualistic spell casting.

Kazarova: I think so. I say think because I’ve never specifically studied these topics. But it seems to me that I unintentionally use certain psychotherapeutic techniques, combined with what could be called everyday or domestic magic.

Palmer: The final question for you: Are there any upcoming projects that you would like people to be aware of?

Kazarova: My upcoming performance will take place in July at the Acker Stadt Palast venue in Berlin. WM