Daria Lazo (b.1992) is a Russian-born British visual artist and photographer based in London. Her work explores body politics and the societal pressures surrounding women’s bodies, often focusing on experiences of womanhood, mental health, identity and nostalgia. Working primarily with analogue photography and moving image, she also experiments with sculpture and alternative processes. Drawing from her background in film, Daria’s work moves between still and moving images, often reflecting on themes of vulnerability, survival, and resistance. Through her practice, she challenges the gaze placed on the female body, looking for ways to dismantle objectification and create space for more nuanced, personal narratives.
For commercial portfolio and enquiries please email contact@darialazo.com
BODY
With Her I: The Curse of Menarche
— Reclaiming menstrual bodies through installation and performance.
With Her II: Corpus — Exploring female body image, identity and mental health.
Korobit [kɐˈrobʲɪt] — A dialogue on displacement, memory, and transformation through the female body in space.
Body Echoes — Documented conceptual performance of the body as an archive of trauma, gesture and resistance.
With Her I: Imprint — Vulva lifecasts in resin, sculptural impressions reclaiming the female body and its narratives.
MOVEMENT
Aithéria — A conceptual, impromptu performance captured on film, reflecting on freedom, resilience and the female body as an activist vessel.
Home— A Super 8 short created with movement artist Konstantina Katsikari, exploring girlhood, memory and the longing for home through quiet, sensory performance.
Space Apart — An exploration of intimacy, absence, and the body’s gestures of longing through movement.
Fluid Life
— Experimental short film exploring gender fluidity through playful performance with body and water.
SELF
With Her I: Self-Portrait — A performative video installation reflecting on personal histories of shame, blood and ritual.
I’m Sorry You Caught Me Sad — A personal reflection on melancholia, anxiety, and belonging, through self-portraiture, gesture and text.
with her i: the curse of menarche
The project takes inspiration from the reclining nude in Renaissance painting. Although those images were created through the male gaze and often reduced women to objects, the bodies shown felt more real. They were soft, unedited, and closer to lived experience than the highly altered ideals seen in modern media. Returning to that pose offered a way to shift its meaning and explore it from a different perspective.
This is a reclining nude seen through the female gaze. The women are modern, and so are their bodies, marked by the details of everyday life: tattoos, nail polish, jewellery, body hair, scars, acne, stretch marks, and sweat. Each body carries its own narrative. It was important for me to show the body as it is, without the mystification shaped by centuries of male desire. While these women are also in the nude, they are not sexualised. They are present, grounded, and celebrated. They take ownership of their own bodies.
Each session was quiet and collaborative. Our conversations went beyond menstruation and into how the body is seen and felt, how it changes, and what it holds. The red fabric became a recurring element, introduced by each participant in their own way. It carried different meanings including blood, shame, softness, power, and transformation.
I used a medium format digital camera to slow the process down and stay close to detail. The series pairs black and white portraits with colour images to create space for stillness, vulnerability, and quiet strength. This is not a return to the classical nude but a reframing of it through shared experience and personal memory.
with her ii: corpus
Corpus is a deeply personal project that delves into self-discovery and challenges societal stigmas surrounding women's bodies. Rooted in my own struggles with body dysmorphic disorder, the project explores the nuanced connection between body and mind, aiming to unveil the hidden battles faced by young women.
As a response to my journey, I set a rule: capturing each participant's vulnerability with only two 120 rolls of film: colour and black and white. This deliberate constraint not only shaped the artistic process but also contributed to the project's sustainability, reducing waste and emphasising the value of each exposure.
This limitation shifted the focus from the 'perfect image' to documenting unique experiences. Through medium format photography, intricate details become storytelling tools, preserving authenticity. Mindful of avoiding objectification, especially of the female nude, I focused on details like scars, moles, and tattoos that represent personal histories.
Each session was similar to a therapy session, fostering meaningful conversations and capturing the individuality of each participant's experience. The photographs became windows into intimate moments, making the portraits personal and private rather than public.
Originally conceived as a photobook, the project includes portraits of fourteen participants. The selection shown here is part of the wider series. If you are interested in viewing the full photobook dummy, please feel free to get in touch.
As a response to my journey, I set a rule: capturing each participant's vulnerability with only two 120 rolls of film: colour and black and white. This deliberate constraint not only shaped the artistic process but also contributed to the project's sustainability, reducing waste and emphasising the value of each exposure.
This limitation shifted the focus from the 'perfect image' to documenting unique experiences. Through medium format photography, intricate details become storytelling tools, preserving authenticity. Mindful of avoiding objectification, especially of the female nude, I focused on details like scars, moles, and tattoos that represent personal histories.
Each session was similar to a therapy session, fostering meaningful conversations and capturing the individuality of each participant's experience. The photographs became windows into intimate moments, making the portraits personal and private rather than public.
Originally conceived as a photobook, the project includes portraits of fourteen participants. The selection shown here is part of the wider series. If you are interested in viewing the full photobook dummy, please feel free to get in touch.
body echoes
Throughout the sequence, AI-generated male eyes appear on my skin through stop-motion. I chose these artificial eyes to speak to the facelessness of many abusers, and the ways violence hides in plain sight, through physical acts, gaze, gestures, words and digital spaces.
The space is cold, almost clinical, with the mirrors cracking under pressure. This discomfort mirrors the daily realities survivors face, caught between hyper-visibility and confinement.
The performance was filmed by Liliana Zaharia, with movement direction by Konstantina Katsikari. Their presence created a space of solidarity and trust that helped me confront these experiences after years of silence.
The sound was composed to hold discomfort, echoing the noise trauma leaves inside the body.
Body Echoes is both an act of confrontation and a space to reclaim the narrative.
Due to the sensitive nature of the work, the video is available for private viewing upon request, please contact me directly.
korobit
Korobit [kɐˈrobʲɪt] is a collaborative project with artist Dasha Vasko. Both of us are Russian immigrants, and the project became a way to reflect on displacement, identity and the ways memory bends over time.
The Russian term 'коробить' has no direct English translation, but evokes the feeling of something being warped, twisted, or boxed in, physically and emotionally. It became a metaphor for the transformations we carry within the body and the self.
Through portraits of Dasha in intimate interiors, framed through the female gaze, the work explores feelings of dislocation, transformation, and the body in space. Mirrors are used as a recurring element, reflecting layers of memory and identity, and weaving a narrative of nostalgia, longing, and womanhood.
Poetry by Akhmatova, Tsvetaeva, Mandelstam, and Vvedensky is interwoven throughout, bringing voices from the past into dialogue with the present. Dasha’s hand-drawn sketches interrupt the photographs, adding gestures and marks that blur the line between image and drawing.
All images were shot on a single roll of 120 film. This self-imposed constraint shaped the project’s rhythm and focus, and the work is presented as diptychs, with each pair holding a conversation between stillness and movement, presence and absence.
The term 'коробить' serves as a poignant metaphor for the transformations explored in our work, encapsulating the beauty and tension of distorted realities.
The Russian term 'коробить' has no direct English translation, but evokes the feeling of something being warped, twisted, or boxed in, physically and emotionally. It became a metaphor for the transformations we carry within the body and the self.
Through portraits of Dasha in intimate interiors, framed through the female gaze, the work explores feelings of dislocation, transformation, and the body in space. Mirrors are used as a recurring element, reflecting layers of memory and identity, and weaving a narrative of nostalgia, longing, and womanhood.
Poetry by Akhmatova, Tsvetaeva, Mandelstam, and Vvedensky is interwoven throughout, bringing voices from the past into dialogue with the present. Dasha’s hand-drawn sketches interrupt the photographs, adding gestures and marks that blur the line between image and drawing.
All images were shot on a single roll of 120 film. This self-imposed constraint shaped the project’s rhythm and focus, and the work is presented as diptychs, with each pair holding a conversation between stillness and movement, presence and absence.
The term 'коробить' serves as a poignant metaphor for the transformations explored in our work, encapsulating the beauty and tension of distorted realities.
with her i: imprint
Lifecasting is approached here as an extension of photographic practice, a process of documenting the body directly, creating sculptural impressions that hold traces of personal histories and shared experiences.
Through this tactile process, the female body is reclaimed, transforming intimate gestures into permanent forms.
Documented here as photographs.
aithéria
The performance was entirely improvised, unfolding as a dialogue between two artists where Konstantina uses her body as a dynamic tool, moving within the natural environment. It is a conceptual response to violence against women and their rights, using the body as a vessel for gestures of freedom and growth.
Through mirrors, double exposure, and the surrounding landscape, the body becomes both subject and signifier, connecting the personal to wider cultural politics. The use of organza fabric adds an ethereal quality, evoking both vulnerability and protest. The mirrors reflect acts of self-reflection, while also creating links between past, present, and future generations of women.
The performance was documented on a single medium format film as part of my ongoing approach to working slowly, intentionally, and with minimal waste. The resulting photographs capture a moment of protest, where the body speaks through movement, gesture, and space.
home
We wanted to create a space that felt light and playful, guided by a childlike gaze rather than something performative. The Super 8 format was chosen for its archival quality its texture and colour helped shift the piece into a different time, evoking warmth, memory and slowness.
The performance itself is quiet and sensory. We focused on touch, air, skin, the sound of bees simple gestures that echo something much deeper. It was important that the camera did not objectify but allowed space for movement and ease. This was not about spectacle but about softness, inner connection and reclaiming comfort in our own skin.
The piece reflects on the feeling of safety and nostalgia in our childhood memories the parts of ourselves we keep under wraps to protect from the noise and responsibilities of modern, urban life.
“Where is our childlike wonder to explore and connect with the nature our roots had to offer? Where is the calm and honest curiosity that comes with being a young girl? In this project, we connect with the memories of what is left of that time, trying to uncover the purest part of ourselves that have helped us evolve into the women we are today.”
— Konstantina Katsikari
Text, narration and 35mm snapshots by Konstantina Katsikari.
Selected stills from Home (Mamiya RB67, medium format film)
fluid life
Fluid Life is an experimental short film created in collaboration with Yui Yamamoto and Adam Razvi. The work explores the body’s relationship with water, using play as a tool to reflect on gender, identity, and the fluidity of the self. Through improvised gestures, the film blurs boundaries between performer, element, and viewer, opening conversations around gender fluidity and the spaces where bodies resist fixed definitions.
While performed by a female body, the film avoids assigning specific roles or identities, allowing the body’s encounters with water to remain ambiguous and open-ended. The only male presence appears fleetingly at the end, further unsettling familiar dynamics of gaze and touch.
Shot on Super8, the work embraces the imperfections and texture of the medium, exploring these themes through a playful, bodily gaze. The unscripted nature of the performance leaves space for spontaneity, vulnerability, and reinterpretation.