Biography
Veronika Berezina is a collector, patron and gallerist, and the founder of NIKA Project Space in Dubai and Paris. Born in St. Petersburg, Russia, she came to the art world by an indirect route: she studied International Relations for her bachelor's and master's at the Moscow State University of International Relations, taking art-history and collecting courses alongside her degrees, and worked afterwards as an international tax lawyer. Art remained the constant — she travelled to exhibitions and biennials worldwide, began collecting in 2013 (first emerging artists in St. Petersburg, then international names), studied further at Sotheby's Institute of Art, and became a patron of Moscow's Garage Museum of Contemporary Art. In 2022 she founded NIKA Project Space, opening it in Dubai in March 2023, drawn by the city's cosmopolitan character and entrepreneurial spirit. Now based between Switzerland and Dubai, she has built NIKA around two convictions she states openly: a commitment to conceptual art for its intellectual depth, and a determination to give women — and artists from the Global South — the representation the industry has long withheld. In 2024 she extended that mission to Europe, opening a NIKA space near Paris.