She based herself in Tbilisi from 2002 and works as a freelance documentary photographer and on personal, long-term projects about post-Soviet states.
"Pictures of lovers and celebrations flow into scenes of loss and war, black and white moves seamlessly to color.
Pages of thick paper stock unfold to reveal handwritten captions, and small texts written by Mielnikiewicz are scattered throughout.
"[5] Following the 2014 annexation of Crimea by the Russian Federation, her long-term project Ukraine Runs Through It (2019) documents the political divide along the Dnieper river.
[6] As described in National Geographic, for Mielnikiewicz "it's a metaphor for modern Ukraine, a country split along historical and ideological divides: on one side, those aligned with the pro-Western ideas of democracy and on the other, those aligned with Russia"[7] "The stories she has gathered illustrate the complex patchwork of histories, ethnicities, and experiences that make up modern Ukraine, and Mielnikiewicz is careful to point out that the current struggles fall along different versions of history and statehood, rather than along ethnic lines.