Masha Weisberg is a visual artist currently based in Vancouver, Canada. Working primarily with photography—ranging from historical and alternative processes to experimental and mixed-media approaches—Weisberg explores themes of generational trauma, cycles of human history, motherhood, and the complex relationship between personal and collective memory. Her practice blends abstract and narrative-driven imagery, engaging with photography as a medium beyond documentation, often intersecting with installation and video art.

Her recent projects investigate inherited histories, war related trauma, and the fragility of human experience.

I’m shaped by the stories of those who came before me. Growing up, I didn’t fully understand that the stories of my ancestors—both spoken and unspoken—were forming my identity. The stories that shaped them—the ones they voiced and the ones they silenced—found their way into my life nonetheless, directing my perception of the world, my choices, and my fears. It’s not always a story that told; often, it is found in absence, in silence, in what is left behind and what is deliberately left unsaid.

I observe how silenced hurt and trauma resurface across generations and time. I think about what it means to inherit this silence and how it is both a shield and a burden—how it protects but also erases.

Now, as the next link in the generational chain, I wonder what I carry forward to my child and beyond. Am I able to protect my child? Is there even a way to protect, a way to heal past traumas, a way to shield him from the mix of hurt that is passed down and exists in the present?

I hold my child and wonder how much of myself—my past and the present world around me—I can silence to protect his future. Is it even the right choice, to keep inheriting the silence?

Dedicated to my son Levi, who makes it all matter.

4×5” Tintypes (silver gelatin print on black coated aluminum)
Images depict phosphorus bombs lighting up the sky over villages, missiles in mid-air, and rocket strikes launched from multiple rocket launch systems in Ukraine. I source the videos from social media, videos shot by civilians and soldiers in Ukraine. I then re-shoot individual frames and go transform them trough analog process. 2022-2024

4×5” Silver gelatin prints on glass
Showcasing my motherhood archive during the first 1,5 years of Russian full scale invasion on Ukraine. Photos were captured in Vancouver, Canada. 2022-2023

8×10” Silver gelatin print on paper
Self portrait of me and my son, captured in Vancouver, Canada 2023