Anna Jermolaewa

Anna was born in Leningrad. She studied fine arts at the Imperial Academy of Arts. After accusing of anti-Soviet agitation and propaganda Anna moved to Vienna, where after several attempts she was able to enter the Vienna Academy of Fine Arts. In 1998 she graduated from the Faculty of Art History at the University of Vienna and later, in 2002, she finished her studies on the faculty of painting, graphics and new technologies at the Vienna Academy of Fine Arts.

In the following years, Anna Jermolaewa was awarded: Römerquelle-Preis (1999), Professor-Hilde-Goldschmidt-Anerkennungspreis (2000), Pfann-Ohmann-Preis (2002), Vienna City Consolation Prize (Förderungspreis der Stadt Wien, 2004), T-Mobile art award 2006, Vienna City Prize (2009).

The range of media that Anna works with includes painting, performances, photography, video art.[5]

During her studies in Leningrad, Anna participated in publishing activities in the small typewritten weekly Democratic Opposition, which had a circulation of 500 copies per issue. At the age of 17, her and two more editors, Artem Gadasik and Vladimir Yaremenko, a criminal case was opened.[6] It is believed that this case was the most recent court case before the collapse of the USSR. Anna was accused of anti-Soviet agitation and propaganda because of Yaremenko's poem published in the weekly. Investigators interrogated 300 people and conducted more than a dozen searches, seizing manuscripts, video recorders and televisions. The investigation was closely followed in the programs of a United States government-funded Radio Liberty, and politicians and human rights activists constantly talked about the fate of Yaremenko, Gadasik and Jermolaewa. Due to the possibility of political repressions and an open criminal case, Anna decided to flee the USSR. Through acquaintances from Lviv, she and other members of the editorial board of the Democratic Opposition asked for an invitation from unknown people to Krakow. An unknown woman there helped them find one of the shopping tours to Vienna that appeared for the Poles. They managed to cross the border with a Soviet passport. The first three weeks Anna and her partners spent on a bench at the station, without food, and then ended up in a refugee camp.