Aksana Veniaminava, born in 1986 in Vitebsk, Belarus, is a contemporary artist currently residing in Paris. She’s a documentary photographer with a strong focus on women’s identity and memory in Eastern European culture.
Through her photographic practice, Aksana Veniaminava explores what women remember — and why. Focusing on the intimate and personal, she traces the objects and traditions women keep, and the stories behind them.
Her best-known project, ”’White Dress”’, is a documentary photography series examining the tradition of preserving wedding dresses as protective objects believed to safeguard a marriage. Created in Belarus, the project combines portraits of women photographed in their homes years after their weddings with their personal testimonies. Although rooted in Belarusian culture, the work addresses traditions and beliefs shared across different countries and communities, exploring how everyday objects become vessels of personal and collective memory. In 2026, the project grew into White Dress book, published by TAMAKA.
During Aksana’s artistic career, her works were nominated for the Hellerau Photography Award (2017) and International Photography Grant (2019), shortlisted for the Kolga Photo Award (2018), and longlisted for the Month of Photography in Grenoble (2020). Her works have been exhibited in Dresden, Riga, Tbilisi, and Minsk.
