Belarus Free Theatre (BFT) presents Official. Unofficial. Belarus., a Collateral Event of the 61st International Venice Biennale. Curated by Daniella Kaliada with Natalia Kaliada MBE, this immersive, multi-sensory exhibition explores how art is made, censored and experienced under authoritarian power and constant surveillance and invites visitors to encounter what it means when culture is forced to exist outside the state.
Since 1994, artists in Belarus who engage critically with power have been forced to work in exile, in secrecy, or under threat of imprisonment. The exhibition continues a lineage of Belarusian artistic practices shaped by displacement and constraint, from the international modernism of Marc Chagall, Chaïm Soutine and Nadia Khodasevich-Léger to late-Soviet traditions of samizdat publishing, unofficial exhibitions and clandestine apartment gatherings. In dialogue with this history, the exhibition introduces international audiences to independent Belarusian art today.
The exhibition creates a twilight zone between spiritual tradition and a totalitarian present, conjuring Belarus through all five senses. In the church, new, site-specific paintings by Sergey Grinevich (b. 1960, Grodno) subvert the conventions of the altar panels, inserting a meditation on the end of privacy into the language of religious iconography. Sounds of Silence, a new organ composition by Olga Podgayskaya (b. 1981, Minsk), alternates between crescendo and reverberating silence. A 2.5-metre sphere composed of books banned in Belarus, originally designed by Nicolai Khalezin (b.1964, Minsk), is compressed within a crushed bulldozer claw. The sculpture positions the erasure of ideas via the act of banning literature as an attempt to curb critical thinking and foster compliance.
Visitors also encounter Surveillance Crucifix, a sculptural cross constructed from analogue CCTV cameras and repurposed railway tracks, embodying the quiet violence of being observed. It collapses the distinction between watcher and watched, questioning dynamics of power and allowing surveillance to enter the sacred space. This work corresponds with Confessional of the System, where visitors step inside confessionals and are confronted with a biometric encounter, showing that the most effective form of control is not the act of surveillance itself, but the widespread acceptance of its inevitable presence.
In an adjacent private cemetery, audio testimonials by recently released Belarusian political prisoners examine the question of what it means to lose one’s home. To protect their anonymity, all former prisoners’ testimonials within the exhibition are voiced by leading actors: Gillian Anderson, Sir Stephen Fry, Jude Law (BFT Trustee), Dame Joanna Lumley, and Ruth Wilson. Here the recordings unfold alongside new large-scale metal sculptures by Vladimir Tsesler (b. 1951, Slutsk). Reimagining the Belarusian straw spider – traditionally hung from the ceiling to maintain balance in the home – Tsesler transforms a delicate folk emblem into a calcified structure forged from a material of confinement. An accompanying installation of wheat – present in labour, ritual and craft in Belarus – is ordered and regulated, at once familiar and unnatural, reflecting an imposed system in dialogue with Tsesler’s works.
As part of the exhibition, at designated times, visitors will be invited to participate in Chef Rasmus Munk’s (b. 1991, Randers) sensory interpretation of a shared offering, reflecting on themes of deprivation experienced by Belarusian political prisoners and the enforced silence of authoritarian power.
Candles fill the church with a specially conceived scent – The Smell of Dictatorship – created with Ukrainian studio ol.factory. Visitors are invited to light the candles and place them on an altar, accompanied by additional recordings of former prisoners’ stories.
During the exhibition, BFT is supporting the maintenance of four antique paintings in the Chiesa di San Giovanni Evangelista, including Martirio di Santa Barbara by Pietro Ricchi (1606-1675), and San Giacomo Apostolo by Antonio Vassilacchi detto Aliense (1556-1629).
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