stefaniabielk

Montréal, Canada

Screenwriter · Writer · Copywriter · Poet

About • Biography

Stefania is a commercial and creative writer. In her creative work, she has received multiple national accolades for her prose poetry that explore themes of gender, sex, isolation, and national identity. In her commercial copywriting, she collaborates with creatives on projects that promote equity and freedom of expression. Notably, she has worked for organizations such as Art Shield — which aims to protect vulnerable dissident artists — and The Borgen Project — which pushes US policymakers to invest more federal funds into international aid initiatives. Currently, she is studying screenwriting and film producing at Concordia University in order to develop, write, and produce her first short film — a story about kindness, forgiveness, and unlikely friendship.

Art Shield - Ukrainian Theatre Campaign
Performing Arts
I worked on promotional materials to encourage NYC-based theatres to join Art Shield’s campaign to support Ukrainian theatres — this collaboration allows NYC theatres to donate a portion of their proceeds directly to Ukrainian performance art centers that are affected by the war.
Doll
Visual Arts
Although I am not a photographer, I have been fixated on the fetishization of immigrant women in the US for a long time. As part of a research project about Asian sex workers in the US during The Gold Rush and the ensuing fetishization of Asian women in North America, I wanted to make a visual depiction of the distortion and the dehumanization that these women experience every day. Inspired by Yelena Yemchuk’s portraits and in collaboration with model Hannah Kotler, this image is part of a series of photos that gradually portray the state-endorsed disempowerment of these women.
Dissecting Matryoshka
Performing Arts
The first page of one of my creative pieces, titled “Dissecting Matryoshka”. Similar to my photography, this work examines the fetishization of immigrant women in the Western world. This prose poetry piece placed 1st in the Bennington Young Writers competition’s non-fiction category, and illustrates the dehumanization of Slavic women in the wake of the Cold War. Although this piece was written prior to Russia’s 2022 invasion of my home country, Ukraine, I see the piece now as part of the discourse surrounding Ukrianian female refugees, and the sexual predators that take advantage of us. The usage of “Slavic” and “Russian” as synonymous illustrates the Soviet-era vocabulary and Russian indoctrination that we still contend with today. Please see this link for the full piece: https://www.bennington.edu/sites/default/files/sources/docs/Bielkina-NonFict-1.pdf This is NOT performance arts piece, although I intend for all of my pieces to be read aloud in readings.