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Andrei Liankevich

Born in Grodno in 1981, Andrei Liankevich lives and works in Minsk. He holds a degree from the State University of Belarus. In 2005 he spent several months living and travelling with the Yezids´minority in Armenia. His final photo project received an excellent mark at World Press Photo Seminars. When only just twenty-four he began working with the European Pressphoto Agency (EPA), then with the Austrian agency Anzenberger. Since 2008 he has been a member of the young photojournalists' collective Sputnik. His pictures are published in the national and international press (The New York Times, Newsweek, Le Figaro, Die Zeit, Der Spiegel, GEO) and exhibited around the world. Andrei Liankevich’s first book “Pagan” one of the rare visual explorations of Belarus Pagan tradition was published in 2010. Year before he won the prize of the Humanity Photo Awards with the same body of work.

Fake Animals is an exploration of gradually vanishing Slavic pagan rites. These are based on ancestral traditions revolving around sacred animals, mysterious creatures whose lives are symbolically connected to the cycles of nature: as messengers and omens, they inspire and take part in sorcery and magic pagan rites – and are the heroes of tales and legends. In his photographs of stuffed animals Andrei Liankevich plays the part of a messenger moving among human souls and the spirits of the natural world. His work is also a tribute to the taxidermists who, as if by magic, restore life and expression to their creatures.
"Life, death. Man, animal. Stuffed animals are a strange, almost inexplicable phenomenon. They are seen by countless thousands of people in museums, but why men kill animals in order to given them a living appearance remains a mystery."