In Balancing Act I, photographer Yulia Lebedeva examines the subtle performance embedded within femininity. The work reflects her ongoing interest in how women navigate expectation — balancing independence with desirability, authority with approachability.

Yulia Lebedeva’s practice often centres on staged photographic tableaux, where gesture, styling and saturated colour heighten emotional and symbolic charge. In this image, balance becomes a visual metaphor for the negotiation of identity: a poised state that is at once composed and precarious.

Playful yet pointed, the work draws on the aesthetics of advertising and social media, exposing how femininity is packaged, consumed and self-curated. Beneath its vibrant surface lies a quiet critique of the invisible pressures that shape personal and social interactions.

As part of the Balancing Act pair, this print frames strength not as opposition to femininity, but as integral to it — a resilience held in plain sight.

This print is produced in a limited edition of 100.

Learn more about Yulia Lebedeva