Mila Teshaieva uses photography, text and video to explore the influence of past and current politics on human lives. Since 2004 she has engaged herself in long- term projects in the territories of the former USSR. In the last few years she has been working in the Caucasus and Caspian Sea region. This four-year journey resulted in her first monograph Promising Waters that was released by Kehrer Verlag in 2013. Mila’s work has received multiple distinctions; her series Buffer Zone was awarded 1st prize in NPPA Best of Photojournalism 2010 and Visa ’Ani 2009, and the project Promising Waters received the Critical Mass Book Award (2012), the NPPA BOP 2nd Place Portrait series (2013), and PDN Photo Annual (2013). Some of her recent exhibitions have taken place in: Museum Art of West Coast (2014), Side Gallery (2014), and Haggerty Museum of Art (2015).