Join the online art show fusing the personal and political in Belarus

Encompassing contemporary art from sculpture to collage, Voices Of Belarus. Chapter Two: Restoring Connections, is an unflinching look at what it means to belong to a country in turmoil. Bringing together three Belarusian artists — Dasha Golova, Sasha Kulak, and Masha Maroz — the exhibition bears witness to how the personal and political collide, and examines identity, heritage, and the idea of belonging with exacting depth.

For the artists involved, Belarus’ ongoing political repression of pro-democracy has both prompted new work and found ongoing projects thrust into a new light.

In Golova’s The Postcards of Solidarity, the artist and tailor presents a series of 555 postcards dedicated to Belarus’ political prisoners. Each card addresses a single detainee, its surface covered in a blend of classic tourist landscape and Belarusian embroidery.

Digging further into the archives, multidisciplinary artist and ethnographer Masha Maroz’s Past Perfect is a collection of historical photographs that explore Belarusian heritage. Placed together, the photos seek to reclaim and strengthen Belarus’ own national identity after a century of Russification.

Veering into personal rather than political history, filmmaker and photographer Sasha Kulak’s visual essay, 10 Years of Not Being Home, features three generations of women: her mother, herself, and her nieces. Kulak made the work upon returning to Belarus as a journalist last year, after having lived abroad for the past decade. “No family traditions have ever existed [in my family],” the artist explains, “So we made one up. My mother took pictures of things, while I took pictures of my mother. “This book is a portrait of her and the things that she took pictures of. The object turns into the subject.”

See the show here, or at the Punt WG gallery in Amsterdam.