Belarus Free Theatre presents Official. Unofficial. Belarus., a Collateral Event of the 61 st International Art Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia, 9 May – 22 November 2026.

 

Artists: Siarhey Grinevich, Nicolai Khalezin, Rasmus Munk,
Olga Padgaiskaya, Vladimir Tsesler
Curated by Daniella Kaliada with Natalia Kaliada
Commissioned by Belarus Free Theatre
Location: La Chiesa di San Giovanni Evangelista di Venezia, San Polo, Venice

 

Exhibition Production in Venice

 

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 Collateral Event Official. Unofficial. Belarus. brings forth the voices of artists that the state prefers silenced.

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 will introduce international audiences to contemporary Belarusian art today: what it looks like, how it survives and what it seeks to say under conditions of sustained repression.

 

For further information, please visit belarusfreetheatre.com

 

During the exhibition, Belarus Free Theatre supports the maintenance of four antique paintings in the Chiesa di San Giovanni Evangelista in Venice.

 

Photo Credits:
Installation view: Official. Unofficial. Belarus. at La Chiesa di San Giovanni Evangelista, a Collateral Event of the 61st International Art Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia. Courtesy of Belarus Free Theatre. Photo: Dasha Trofimova.