I believed that you don't need a diploma to prove you're an artist: your life proves it. One day, newspapers started writing: 'Sasha Skochilenko, an artist from St Petersburg.' It took me a couple of years to accept this. I quit a good job, diving head-first into the St Petersburg underground scene, transforming from a hardworking, top-of-the-class girl into a marginal figure.
I lived on the brink of hunger and picked up food from the streets. I wanted to have all the time in the world for art. I would sit in the large atrium where my works were displayed, with my feet wrapped in plastic bags over my socks because I couldn't afford waterproof shoes.
We had a Telegram chat called 'Friends Wolf Down', connecting the most creative people in the city with a big need for food. We shared sustenance and organized events for those shut out of the mainstream Russian art world, which were much more exciting than any official initiatives in Putin's gloom.
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