Sasha and I were sitting by a tiled stove, it was very dark. Sasha was talking about the Belarusian soul, about how it was rooted in the Soviet Union and how it was hard to find people who were aware of their roots. Travelling to Belarus, I wanted to understand what type of soul Sasha […]

The Belovezhskaya Pushcha in Belarus is an ancient woodland, the last primeval forest in Europe. It has its special place in the history of the country, and is deeply rooted in Belorussian folklore. I wanted to examine the complex human relationship with nature in communities situated closest to the Belovezhskaya Pushcha. I was primarily interested […]

The “Goodbye, Motherland” project explores the attitude to WWII in Belarus. Belarus has only one ideology – war ideology. Belarus Independence Day is the day when the capital was freed from the Nazi occupation. The main streets in the capital are named after war heroes, which is around 30% of all streets names. The latest […]

I was portraying women – veterans of the Second World War. I was inspired by Svetlana Alekseyevich’s book War’s Unwomanly Face. The heroines of my story were all active participants of the war. They are “Heroes of the Nation”. All these women of different nationalities were fighting in World War II for their homeland. The […]

They are the best of the best. The winners of national and local contests. They are proof that everything goes well. They are the pride of the nation. They are the image the authorities give to society.

“Homeland” explores the Belorussian community in New York. Objects of the past, favorite present places as well as future goals tell us the stories of individuals from different backgrounds and of different ages, who all share the wish for a more free and prosperous life.

“City of Women” is a story about 12 women from Grodno, a city in northwest Belarus, where women officially outnumber men 1.4 to 1, although the locals claim the ratio is much higher. Every day Maya Chirkova walks to her small Grodno office, where she has paired Belarusian women with foreign men for 15 years. […]