"GLOBAL CULTURAL REVIVAL & the AWAKENING of HUMANKIND is my GUIDING LIGHT..."
MARU$YA KAZAKOVA aka BAБAЯGA [BABAJAHGA] is a multidisciplinary artist whose work explores the relationship between ancestral knowledge, contemporary culture, and spiritual inquiry through a practice informed by years of study in intuitive, mystical, and healing traditions. Integrating these disciplines as artistic methodologies, she creates works that invite reflection, expanded perception, and deeper human connection.
At the heart of her practice is the idea of global reindigenization—an exploration of the shared human impulse to reconnect with ancestral knowledge, cultural memory, and our relationship to the living world. Rather than returning to the past, Kazakova seeks to reinvigorate the unifying core that exists at the intersection of diverse cultural traditions: a place where, through our differences, we recognize our shared humanity. Her work investigates this meeting point, where ancient knowledge and contemporary culture converge, and where material, spirit, and lived experience become inseparable.
Born in the Soviet Union and rooted in Slavic–Siberian traditions, her work draws from her own cultural heritage while engaging in dialogue with traditional crafts and knowledge systems from around the world. Working across art, fashion, painting, installation, performance, and immersive experiences, Kazakova develops a contemporary visual language that bridges ancestral wisdom with contemporary culture. Whether through garments, paintings, sacred objects, installations, immersive experiences, or sacred encounters, her work functions as a living space where material, story, and spirit converge—inviting reflection, transformation, and a renewed relationship with ourselves, one another, and the living world.
EXPLORE
THE REALMS
FASHION
Fashion functions as a living language within Kazakova's practice, where the garment becomes both artifact and narrative. Indigenous Hip Hop Couture is the conceptual framework that defines this body of work. Rooted in Slavic Indigenous motifs and informed by traditional crafts from diverse cultures, the artist upcycles, reconstructs, and creates one-of-a-kind forms from ancient textiles, mass-produced materials, and found objects. Her work explores the idea of global reindigenization—reconnecting contemporary life with ancestral knowledge through a renewed visual language that bridges traditional craftsmanship with the aesthetics of hip hop and contemporary culture. These garments are not only worn, but inhabited—as extensions of the body, the story, and the Spirit.
ART
Kazakova’s visual practice is centered in painting, incorporating textile, collage, and layered materials into the surface to create works that operate between material and symbolic realms. Working with acrylic and mixed media, she produces paintings, posters, and illustrative works that merge street-informed graphic language with symbolic and cultural references. Rooted in both ancestral knowledge and contemporary realities, her work engages questions of identity, society, and lived experience.
Bridging street vernacular with sacred symbolism, Kazakova has developed a distinct visual language that integrates ancient symbols with a hybrid Russian–English idiom and expressive mark-making. Her compositions often feature faces - masks—futuristic yet ancient spirit-guides that emerge through the work, speaking to the present moment while carrying echoes of ancestral realms. Through this approach, her paintings operate as both personal and collective commentary, reflecting on current conditions while opening space for deeper awareness and questioning.
SPIRIT
Spirit forms the foundation of Kazakova’s work. Through ritual, ceremony, and intuitive processes, she creates spaces for transformation, reconnection, and remembrance. Working with voice, sound, breath, and presence, as well as divination tools such as cards, runes, and symbolic systems, she guides participants through embodied processes that engage both physical and energetic dimensions. Drawing from ancestral knowledge and lived experience, her work invites a return to inner alignment, awareness, and deeper connection. These experiences extend beyond the studio into immersive and participatory environments, where individual and collective processes unfold within a shared field.
GALLERY
The gallery presents a curated selection of Kazakova’s works across performance, exhibitions, installations, and editorial projects. Conceived as an evolving archive of public-facing practice, it brings together moments where her work enters space, audience, and context. Spanning live actions, constructed environments, and visual narratives, the gallery reflects the expanded field of her practice—where fashion, art, and ritual converge within lived experience.
