Hidden Narratives

The featured works are rooted in the place and time of their creation, yet not confined to them. The Belarusian context becomes a point of departure for a broader conversation about memory, intimacy, loss and belonging. About Nothing that has perished is ever truly lost as long as there are people. – Eva Viežnaviec Many of the histories that have shaped contemporary Belarusian identity remained hidden for a long time. Today, we can reconstruct them only from fragments: through family stories, bodily memory, personal archives and shared experiences, often marked by trauma. As they are passed on, they gradually move beyond the framework of individual experience and become part of collective memory. The ways in which personal experiences become part of a shared narrative connect the projects by the six Belarusian women artists featured in the exhibition. Each, in her own way, confronts what has been lived, seen, found and imagined, drawing on different artistic strategies and idioms. Created in different circumstances, the works show how one person’s history can become accessible to others while retaining its complexity and intimate character. Yulia Tsvetkova explores the relationships between humans and other forms of life, approaching ecology and landscape as spaces for reflecting on the memory of political trauma. Sasha Kulak draws on the Belarusian myth of the fern flower to reflect on language, loss, uprooting and life in exile. Olga Kirillova explores intimacy and bodily sensitivity, examining the tension between the private and the public. Sasha Smal turns to the borderland as a space in which identity is formed between different languages and cultures. Using vernacular photography as the basis for her paintings, Dina Leonova treats it as a vehicle of memory and a means of sustaining family bonds and intimacy across distance. Masha Sviatahor, meanwhile, uses collage to transform propagandistic visions of a promised future by introducing insect motifs into them. These organic elements make the images seem strange and unreal, exposing their absurdity and undermining the solemnity of official representations of collective unity. The featured works are rooted in the place and time of their creation, yet not confined to them. The Belarusian context becomes a point of departure for a broader conversation about memory, intimacy, loss and belonging. Read more Toggle Film / Video Painting Photography