Olesya Turkina has curated over one hundred international art projects, including video art exhibitions in the State Russian Museum, Saint Petersburg: “Electric Earth. Contemporary British Video Art” (2002); Aiyoung Yun, Le Jardin Secret (2003); Sam Taylor-Wood (2004); German Video Art in the Russian Museum (2016-17, together with Katrin Becker).

She was curator of “Woman in Art” (Leningrad, Regional Exhibition Hall, 1989), the first feminist exhibition in Russia, and of the extensive feminist project “8th March, International Women's Day” (Moscow, the Worker and Kolkhoz Woman Pavilion, 2013), with Natalia Kamenetskaya and Marina Loshak. In collaboration with Victor Mazin, Olesya curated the exhibition “The Life of the Remarkable Vladik Monro” (New Museum, Saint Petersburg, 2014).

Since 2011 she has been curator (with Victoria Ilyushkina) of “Videoforma”, the international festival of video art at the Sergei Kuryokhin Centre for Contemporary Art. She is the author of numerous articles and books on contemporary art, including works about video art and feminism.

“Contemporary avant-garde cinema, like its historical predecessor, is distinguished by a striving to find new experimental forms, to engage with social issues, to break taboos imposed by society, and to fight intolerance. Such traits allow the modern cinema to broaden our view of the world, not only explaining it but giving us a chance to change it for the better.”