Nikita Teryoshin | Backyard Diaries – Hidden Worlds of Urban Cats

NIKITA TERYOSHIN
Backyard Diaries – Hidden Worlds of Urban Cats

2019 – ongoing

“Backyard Diaries” showcases backyard cats as an alternative to meme cats and classic cat content found on the internet. These cats are not being pushed around in strollers, nor do they come from prestigious pedigrees. They are constantly engaged in a sometimes harsh struggle for survival, and their appearance reflects their past experiences. Through his work, Nikita Teryoshin pays tribute to these outsiders of society. On the other hand, the series also reveals the less touristy areas of cities that, like the cats themselves, are often subject to gentrification.

The series began in St. Petersburg, where the author photographed for “Nothing Personal – the back office of war” at a so-called defense fair. The sight of the merchants there depressed him, but when he stumbled upon a group of sleeping cats on a car in the backyard of my downtown house, he immediately felt a warm connection and continued the project in Bangkok, Atlantic City, and finally Istanbul.

Nikita Teryoshin, Backyard Diaries – Hidden Worlds of Urban Cats

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» GET TO KNOW THE ARTIST «

Based in Berlin, Nikita Teryoshin was born in Leningrad, USSR.

When he was 13-years old his family moved to Dortmund, where he went on to earn a Bachelor of Arts in Photography. His father Vladimir Teryoshin was a painter and set designer at the theater and television. Visiting his dad’s working place, full of requisites and mysterious stuff, made a deep impression on the Nikita. Since then he remained interested in backstages set up by the media, industry or politics. Also the photographic research on the relationship between humans and animals is an big part of his work.

In 2008 during his studies after first discovering the work and irony of Elliott Erwitt and later Martin Parr and Lars Tunbjörk, he became obsessed with documentary photography.  His longest project ‘Nothing Personal’ (2016 – ongoing) deals with the global arms trade. It won the World Press Photo 2020 and has been exhibited and published widely. In 2024 he published his first monograph ‘Nothing Personal – the back office of war’ with GOST books. His clients are ZEIT, Stern, The New Yorker, Le Monde, among others. Since 2020 he is also running his small own publisher pupupublishing. He describes his genres as street, documentary and everyday horror and is a member of Burn My Eye photography collective.