Life & Work with Alexandra Shurun of Los Angeles

Today we’d like to introduce you to Alexandra Shurun

Hi Alexandra, please kick things off for us with an introduction to yourself and your story.
I was born in Kyiv, Ukraine and spent almost all my life in my hometown. I graduated from Kyiv State Linguistic University and got a degree in management. After graduation I got my first full time job, which I had for almost eleven years, in the international relations department of one of our state enterprises.

After couple of years at that job I understood that this was not what I wanted to do in my life. I started thinking about changing profession. Those thoughts were not easy to have because I had many interests, and it was difficult to choose only one sphere to explore. Also, at that time I was a young mother, and financial responsibility for my family did not make it easy to start from scratch.

I sifted through my memories of all the things I so much enjoyed in my childhood and teen years, things that I felt truly inspired by, hopes and dreams, however they did not seem to connect to what was popular or demanded in the job market. I remember when I was 10 wishing I had a video camera to make short films from my dreams at night. I remembered how happy I was dancing, drawing. How inspired I felt acting in the school drama studio, how I did not sleep nights trying to write short stories when I was 16, how I used to dive into philosophy class at the University, how I love to binge reading books in medical psychology. The more I allowed myself to think of what really interested me the more I felt I was in the wrong place in my life. I was afraid that someday on my death bed I would regret enormously that I had never even tried to do what could fill my heart with passion. The need for change was growing in me day by day.

  2013 was the year when I saw, undeniably, that I had to change things. I was sent on a business trip to England and as I wanted to take good pictures of my trip, I took our family’s new DSLR camera with me. I had never used this kind of camera before and I was surprised that it was quite difficult to take a good photograph with something that is supposed to be almost a professional camera, compared to what I was used to with my simple and small automatic digital camera. I immediately started self-studying photography. I fell in love with the process and in half a year I enrolled in one of the photography schools in Kyiv.

The deeper I got into the studying, the more I felt how difficult it was to combine work and my new calling. It became unbearable to not have time for photography.

My route to work was long, I had to leave my house at 7:30 a.m. every day. I would wake up around sunrise, leave for work an hour earlier than I needed to, and took my camera with me hoping to take some photos on the way to my job. I could do that only in summer though, because of light. On weekends I dedicated myself to my family who waited for me to spend time with them. I had a little son. 

I was alone in my dream. With the lack of support, I did not mention to anybody that I was taking photography classes. I used my days of vacation to go to photography school. I strongly felt how important that was, not to give up, to follow my dream. Looking back now at those years I can see how I was instinctively merging everything that had fascinated me all my life into this method of visual expression.

My office job was something that some people dream about. It was stable, offered security, good income. People worked generations there, but I was in the wrong place. Around that time a big restructuring came into our company, almost every department had to be downsized, many people could lose their jobs. I started to think somewhere at the back of my mind about working as a photographer. One day going to work by bus I thought to myself “what if I ask to be fired today? I imagined myself going to every floor and room of our huge office building to say goodbye words to my colleagues and that felt so great! I almost had wings and could fly like a butterfly, that’s how light I felt imagining all that. When I got to the office, I went straight to the head of my department but she was not there yet. I came back to my room but could not even sit at my desk. I was like I had a fever, I was almost shaking, the idea of such a big change made me feel drunk. Who else if not me is in charge of my own life?

When I finally told her she was surprised but understood why I wanted that change.

It was not easy to leave, though. It was a long process. I had to wait till I could be laid off under work force reduction to get compensation. Compensation was important to me, as I had no savings. I had a child who depended on me, I wanted to have some money for the first time, and I wanted to buy a professional camera.

During the waiting, not many people supported me. It seemed a wild step to many. People I barely knew would call me up and tried to talk me out of it. “You will regret your choice for the rest of your life, you will be poor”, they said. There was a lot of pressure and unwanted advice.

But I had no doubts. Decision was born inside. It took me nine months to be laid off. Every one of those months I thought would be the last. Time stretched endlessly. I was in a suitcase mood, trapped somewhere between my old and new life.

When the day finally came, I was happy to say good-bye. I was grateful but impatient to leave the past behind. I used the compensation money to buy a camera and couple of lenses, made some savings for the upcoming winter and started working as a freelance photographer.

From the time I was first interested in photography, it was never about commercial photography. But I hoped to combine art with commercial photo shoots. That would help me to pay my bills.

In 2018 I met a person who inspired me for my first photo project. It was a young woman who five years earlier fell from the fifth floor of a building, but now even in a wheelchair she continued moving towards her dreams. It suddenly felt very important for me to tell her story as well as the stories of other people who did not give up. When I completed this project there was an exhibition at one of the stations of the Kyiv Underground, and I was invited to TV and Radio to talk about my it. 

In 2019 after going through a traumatic experience in my personal life I started researching ideas regarding the importance of accepting psychological trauma. The photo project born of this was conceived in the form of psychological experiment in which 22 people took part. It gave birth to my first self-published book, “Transparent Skin.”

During the first Covid Lockdown in 2020 I came back to something I had loved as a child, drawing. Being a huge fan of Twin Peaks, I started to develop a series of drawings with locations from the film. I always dreamed of seeing these locations in person but as it was almost impossible to get a US visa I began my traveling on the paper in my sketch book.

One day I made a post with my drawings in one of Twin Peaks communities on Facebook and the next day I received an e-mail from an American director who was working on a documentary about one of the actresses in the show, Catherine Coulson (The Log Lady). He asked if he could use one of my drawings in the film.

I agreed and, in some time, I was hired to do some more drawing and then we began working together on the film. We worked remote. Every day I was falling in love more and more with the project and film team. It felt like a dream work, the more I did, the more I wanted to keep being a part of the project.

In February 2022, Russia invaded my country. Me and my family were trapped in our house in the northern part of Kyiv. My film team supported me in every way they could. On the first day of war, they offered a place to stay in Warsaw, Poland in the apartment where one of the members of film team lived. But it was not safe to try to escape yet. I spent first 10 days of the war in a little basement in our house and it felt like one endless year-long day. Every day we discussed whether we should try to evacuate or stay where we were. Many people who tried to escape were killed. At some point, after a series of explosions just near our house we decided to go. Me and my 13 year-old son went to railway station and got on evacuation train. In two days, we reached Warsaw and stayed there for two weeks.

In what seemed like a miracle, my German colleague’s parents had an apartment they had let a refugee stay in, who had just moved out. The timing was perfect. They welcomed me and my son and we stayed in Warstein, Germany for 5 months.

Warstein, a small town on the northwest of Germany, became a temporary home for many Ukrainian refugees. I found myself thinking a lot about philosophical question: what is home for a person? Soon I expressed it in my next project with the name “Home”.

When the United States government announced the United for Ukraine program, there was a chance for us to go there. My son and I have been living in Los Angeles since August of 2022.

It has not been easy to adapt. So many things to observe, absorb, learn and understand. I often feel overwhelmed, but something will be born of it.

Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
I did not have any support when I decided to change my profession. Soon after I started this new chapter in my life I also faced the challenges of combining art and commercial work, expressing myself and making a living. It is complicated by being a mom of a child with autism spectrum disorder.
One of the toughest experiences was leaving home because of war, being a refugee. As a result of the war I have now got PTSD.
I am still going through culture shock in the USA, it is hard to understand how the things work in another country and harder still to explain these things to my son.

Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
I am visual artist whose choice of media is photography and drawing. I work mainly with social and psychological topics, experimenting on the intersection of documentary and art. I had 4 solo exhibitions and took part in a number of group exhibitions. I self published the book “Transparent Skin”.

Also I worked as an art director and illustrator on the documentary feature film “I Know Catherine, The Log Lady” about life and death of Catherine Coulson.

I am known for my colorful black sketchbook drawings, my photography and my dedication to the projects I work on and I am proud of that.

We’d love to hear about how you think about risk taking?
I took a big risk when I quit my stable and well paid job and started from scratch in an absolutely new area.

I also have taken risks when I fled my home in Ukraine because of war and moved to the USA where I had never been before.

Growth often involves risk. Searching for your true calling often requires you to be ready for a change. Every change comes with a risk of failure. Courage is needed to follow your own path.

I think it is important to follow your dreams. Sometimes your dreams know more about you and about what you are capable of than you do.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.alexshurun.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/_inner_empire_/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/alexshurun/

Image Credits
All photographs and drawings copyright Alexandra Shurun