Blickwechsel: Kultur und weibliche Perspektiven in/aus Belarus

“The personal is currently political in Belarus to a much greater extent than elsewhere in Europe,” says the current exhibition at KVOST, Dialog between Generations. Belarusian Female Artists (until 16th April). The works of the photographers play with role patterns, question stereotypes and reflect on family and social pasts in a country whose culture and history are known to only a few in the West. Are these personal and artistic positionings political, are they feminist? What do they tell a Berlin audience?

The authors of the book Belarus! Das weibliche Gesicht der Revolution (published 2020 by edition.fotoTAPETA) also reflect on the social role of women in Belarus. The book is a many-voiced, controversial “historiography of the moment.” The formula of the “female face of the revolution” loses its supposed self-evidence in the different perspectives on the present in Belarus, which is characterized by protests and repression.

The texts of the 23 authors (writers, artists, activists, journalists, scientists), as well as the exhibited photographical works, demand a closer consideration. The exhibition’s co-curator Maya Hristova and co-editor Nina Weller will therefore talk about the diversity of female perspectives in/from Belarus at KVOST. The conversation will be moderated by Matthias Schwartz, slavist/historian, head of the program area World Literature and the project World Fiction, Post/Socialist. Eastern European Literatures and Cultures at ZfL.