Anna Biriulina

Anna Biriulina is a filmmaker and new media artist. Born and raised in Siberia, she first studied documentary filmmaking in Saint Petersburg, Russia. In 2024, she graduated from Le Fresnoy – Studio national des arts contemporains (France) and is currently pursuing a practice-based PhD on virtual reality as an artistic medium. Combining archival materials with cutting-edge digital techniques, Biriulina creates immersive narratives that challenge conventional perceptions of history and identity. Her most recent work to date is “Memories of Tartaria”, a VR docu-fiction experience.

WATCHING FOR THE BARBARIANS is an interactive virtual reality experience. Inspired by Dino Buzzati’s Desert of the Tartars and my Russian-Tatarian heritage, the project questions fear of the “Other” as a political and cultural construct influencing individual perception. The viewer is placed in the memory of a solitary lookout, who spends his life watching the horizon for cruel barbarians who never come. This memory becomes a surreal landscape, blending memories of what happened and what didn’t, visualized through computer-generated archival images. Here, your gaze becomes your only instrument of action.