Lera Polivanova is an artist, photographer and director based in Italy, and has lived and worked between Milan, Berlin and Paris. She grew up in Volgograd in southern Russia, surrounded by nature and animals, inventing stories and staging small performances. Painting, theatre, literature and cinema were part of her early creative life. She began taking photographs at fourteen, and film became one of her strongest influences.
She left Russia at nineteen, lived in Odessa and spent several months in the United States before moving to Milan in 2014. After studying painting and graphic design in Russia, she graduated in Photography and Visual Arts from IED Milan in 2017.
Her early work focused on fine-art and architectural photography, still life and digital collage, exploring the boundary between constructed and real spaces. After graduating, she began working with people through editorial photography. Fashion became a place to experiment, collaborate and build a community. Working with other creatives also became a way to find a sense of belonging.
Sportswear and outdoor gradually became the main fields of her commissioned photography, alongside fashion and independent editorial projects. She has worked with brands including Nike, Mammut, Chloé, Woolrich, Umbro and Timberland. Her work has appeared in around thirty print publications, including covers for Studio Magazine and Numéro Berlin, alongside numerous online editorials.
Around 2021, she founded Amplescope, an independent photography and art magazine focused on emerging artists. Together with a graphic designer, a fashion director and contributing artists, she self-produced its first issue.
Directing had been an ambition since her teenage years. In recent years, she has increasingly moved into moving image, directing and editing short films and fashion films including Discolocal (2024), No Peace No Pussy (2025), Feuerle (2025), Victoria De Angelis (2025), Kiani del Valle (2026) and Loitergeist (2026). Her films often combine photography, performance, movement, fashion and dark comedy.
She participated in a group painting exhibition in Milan in 2017 and presented Leeway, a solo photography exhibition exploring memory through digitally constructed interiors, in 2018. In 2025, she taught photography within a master’s programme at ADL in Milan.
Her current research explores belonging, escape and the normalisation of horror, often through dark comedy and contrasts between strength and vulnerability. She is developing this research through photography and short films.