Through photography, Katya Tsikina (2001) expresses her inner world filled with ideas, images, and feelings. Capturing anything that holds her attention forms an outlet for her emotions to travel, closing the gap between the internal and external worlds. Her editing style constantly shifts, finding the most appropriate way to emphasize the feelings awakened by the subject matter through the colors and contrasts of the photographs. 

She graduated from Cal Poly Slo in 2024, gaining a bachelor’s degree in pre-law sociology with political science and dance minors. During her gap year of completing law school applications, she revisited her love for photography, dance, and writing with a deeper intent to find a sense of stability in the unknown. Moving to New York in February 2025, she was able to refocus all of her energy on dance and choreography. Recently, she attempted to combine all three of her passions into one and started a blog. 

From the knowledge gained from her sociology degree and her fascination with human nature and psychology, her writing is greatly influenced by how humans shape and are shaped by external influences of society. Combining this interest with more abstract concepts of existential crises and emotional hardships guides her ideas for her compositions. For her, it is a way to organize, free one’s mind of circulating ideas, and transmute them into words, helping them gain their own physical presence, no longer attached to her for survival. Creative endeavors help her maintain a healthy mind, quieting her thoughts and accessing a sense of peace.