About Varvara Degtiarenko

Varvara Degtiarenko is a New Orleans based documentary filmmaker and multidisciplinary artist exploring narratives within the realm of creative process, filming with musicians, visual artists and performers, and is particularly interested in telling stories that act as a bridge to Eastern European cultures.
She incorporates her background of art conservation ethics in her approach to filmmaking. She sees documentary film as a conservation tool for themes of historical memory, inclusion, tolerance and identity.
She believes memory is inherently creative and incorporates this idea in much of her work. She studied art history at VCU in Richmond (2011) and graduated from Strelka Institute in Moscow, Russia (2013), an interdisciplinary urbanism program, where she focused on local museums as avenues for positive change in support of local stories. Her studies, her work in textile conservation both in the US and in Russia, as well as her film work in the US, Russia and Ukraine have contributed to her deep value for preserving the past as a form of activism.
She is a director, producer, cinematographer and editor, with experience also as a carpenter/builder and mixing field sound.