How would you like to introduce yourself to our readers? Who is Uladzimir Hramovich?
Most often, I describe myself as an artist who also engages in curatorial work and conducts art research. Sometimes I am a historian and sometimes an activist. In Belarus, where I come from, such a multifaceted approach is quite common. I usually add that for the past four years I have been a political refugee, and currently live in Europe.
What specific areas of art do you work in?
I work in various media, and my primary area of interest is history—filling in the blank spots in the history of Belarusian art. I sometimes like to refer to myself as a ‘speculative restorer of history’.
In Belarus, we often say that ‘there is nothing’ in our country. There was once something, but it was all destroyed during WWII. The archive perished, someone stole it, or it was censored by the Lukashenko regime. There were some artists, but they left. This narrative, pertinent today as much as ever, is deeply rooted in Belarusian culture. So, starting from the statement that ‘there is nothing’, I began to dig deeper. After some time, I came to realize that actually, there is everything—all we need to do is look around really carefully.
When I was at university, I became interested in the urban history of Minsk. It is a ‘cleaned-up’, tidy city—and I’m interested in revealing what lies beneath the restored, repainted, sanitized facades. Minsk was almost entirely destroyed during WWII. As a result of the post-war socialist transformation, a distinct ‘seam’, or a joint, appeared on many buildings, connecting the old foundations and the new structures. Of course, not only history, but also politics determine that the new replaces the old; someone’s vested interest and capital are always behind it.
What I find lacking in Belarusian art is a sense of coherence: everything appears chaotic and disjointed. What is missing are the archives and histories that would not be censored. My practice is, then, on the one hand, filling in the blanks of history by searching for traces of the past, and on the other hand—speculating on what could have been and what is not here, because it has never been archived. In my art research, I rely on a variety of media. This may seem eclectic: sometimes I use drawing and at other times, installation. A certain constant is a desire to document and archive what should have been preserved, but was obliterated for historical and political reasons.
Uladzimir Hramovich, BCHB (white-black-white), reconstruction, fabric, 2015. Photo by Uladzimir Hramovich
How did art institutions function in Belarus before 2020? What changed after the revolution?
As of 2020, there are no contemporary art institutions in Belarus. As part of government repressions, following the revolution, all progressive institutions were closed down. Previously, Galeria Ў was an important venue for the exhibition of contemporary art. Unfortunately, the authorities closed it down and people who were once responsible for running the space are currently in exile. There is one academy of fine arts, rather conservative in comparison to Polish state-run institutions. No one teaches the language of multimedia there; monumental and easel painting, sculpture, and graphic design dominate the curriculum. Virtually everyone who is engaged in contemporary art is self-taught.
As Belarusian citizens, we hardly have any presence in the official cultural circuit. We are considered as ‘lesser Russians’. In other dictatorships and authoritarian structures, the tendency is to support nationalism. In Belarus, the opposite is true: Lukashenko is actively trying to dismantle Belarusian national identity, to Russify us. Actually, the national art collection was financed by a private entrepreneur with links to Russia, Viktar Babaryka, a former presidential candidate who is currently incarcerated.
There is no grants system or state support for arts in Belarus. In the 1990s, there was the George Soros Open Society Institute, but it was shut down in 1997 because of its ties to the West. An entire generation of artists were denied the opportunity to apply for grants and residencies.
Uladzimir Hramovich, Black Stork series, charcoal on paper, 2021. Photo by Uladzimir Hramovich
Uladzimir Hramovich, Black Stork series, charcoal on paper, 2021. Photo by Uladzimir Hramovich
Uladzimir Hramovich, Black Stork series, charcoal on paper, 2021. Photo by Uladzimir Hramovich
Uladzimir Hramovich, Black Stork series, charcoal on paper, 2021. Photo by Uladzimir Hramovich
Some commentators are quite critical of the art of the 1990s, and refer to it as ‘bred on grants’. I, however, do not think that institutions can provide better support for the arts than grants. If it were not for the latter, many people could not be involved in artistic work for lack of financial opportunities. Art requires time, conditions, and resources, and in Belarus we never had them. Instead, we all practised ‘self-institutionalization’, that is, we did our best to construct and sustain networks analogous to state-backed structures. Because of this, up until 2020, the entire contemporary Belarusian culture has developed while bypassing the state, thanks to the expanded third sector, which has now been almost entirely outlawed.
Here, I would like to mention a few grassroots initiatives, such as Kalektar—Sergey Shabohin’s contemporary art archive, where you can find information on almost all artists from Belarus. There is also the photographic archive VEHA, initiated by Lesia Pcholka, which preserves and digitizes photographs sent by private individuals in order to preserve uncensored traces of ordinary life in Belarus. There were also projects by Prastor KCh in Brest and ChYZ in Minsk, which focused on the art of the LGBT+ community and other minority groups. We also had the magazines: pARTizan and Partizanka, published by Artur Klinov.
However, the problem with self-institutionalization is that often everything depends on a single person, who not only puts a lot of work into a given initiative, but also keeps total control over it. Therefore, under normal circumstances, we need institutions to ensure that everyone has equal access, rather than relying on subjective choices.
How is Berlin working out for you?
As an immigrant, you must start from scratch. You have to learn the language, you are back to square one. People from Belarus, who already have some symbolic capital and have established grassroots organizations back home, take them with them when they emigrate. This is an issue, because nothing is left behind. Simultaneously, transferring self-organizing practices developed in the very specific context of dictatorship and oppression to Western Europe simply does not make sense. That is why Belarusians in exile are often left to their own devices and have to somehow find a suitable niche for themselves in the competitive art world. For example, I have never before worked anywhere that would recognize being an artist as a profession. In Germany, I have self-employed status, and I am insured at the Künstlersozialkasse [artist’s social security fund—editor’s note].
After graduating from the Academy of Arts in Minsk, I could not even open a bank account because I had no profession that was officially recognized. Every job I did was off the books. Working in a ‘normal, capitalist’ context, I need to unlearn the patterns that prevailed in Belarus, where ‘there was nothing’ and everything had to be created from the ground up.
Uladzimir Hramovich, The memory of the people to live forever, lithography on paper, 2016. Photo by Viktoryja Kharytonava
Uladzimir Hramovich, The memory of the people to live forever, lithography on paper, 2016. Photo by Viktoryja Kharytonava
As I meet and engage with artists from Belarus in Berlin, I get the impression that you and your peers are all friends and make up a visible community…
When I look at people from Ukraine, I get a similar impression. But then, I hear that everyone is embroiled in some kind of conflict, there are scandals, people get cancelled. Of course, those with an established position in the cultural field (for example Lena Prents, director of the Prater Gallery or Alexander Komarov, founder of Air Berlin Alexanderplatz) are keen to support other artists from Belarus. I am personally very grateful to them for their willingness to cooperate. In Belarus, the art community was relatively small, and in Berlin you can choose who you want to work with. Even so, I sometimes miss the flexibility and the ability to adapt to the needs of others, which was the common practice in Belarus, where the community was rather tight-knit. Here, everyone bets on themselves.
Have you ever experienced discrimination, or perhaps favourable treatment, because of your background?
There are institutions in Poland and Germany that allow me to make a living from art, so in this sense there is no question of exclusion. Following 2020, there was a wave of solidarity with Belarus, there were several exhibitions, events… This, however, stopped with the outbreak of full-scale war in Ukraine. Belarus went from being a country of non-violent revolution to an aggressor collaborating with Putin’s Russia. Of course, I know of artists who faced discrimination at that time. They were told that it was not the right time to exhibit Belarusian artists, or their requests were ignored altogether. Such marginalization demonstrates that Western institutions do not recognize the difference between Belarusians and Russians. This is all the more reason why I feel the need to speak about decolonizing practices—in order to mark the differences between Russians and, for example, Tatars, the Chuvash, the Komi, the Evenki people, and Belarusians. The people of my country are ready for radical change and for freeing themselves from Russian influence—especially as Belarus, unlike other European countries, has never shown imperialist tendencies.
What are your plans for the near future? Where do you see yourself in a few years’ time?
As a refugee, it’s not easy for me to think about the future. For now, I’m trying to deal with the present. I have already managed to legalize my stay in Germany. I’m taking part in exhibitions and working on future ones. But to think about some far-reaching plans for the future… or is it the past? I always get these words confused in Polish. Przyszłość and przeszłość—they do sound very similar…
Since the protests in Belarus were pacified, I’ve been convinced that there are no longer any fixed points of reference. This makes me think of Walter Benjamin’s notion of the angel of history, tossed by the winds of the past, facing the ruins left behind. I think about the future in a similar way. I tend to look back. I think of the interwar generation and the fact that back then, too, many people involved in culture remained in exile. The art of my Ukrainian friends reminds me of the work of the early 20th century.
And finally, not to be so dramatic, I have a positive metaphor for political refugees from Belarus and migrants in general. There is a German word, Pfeilstorch, referring to a stork injured by an arrow or spear while wintering in Africa, which returns to Europe with the projectile stuck in its body to breed in the spring. The first and most famous Pfeilstorch was a white stork found in 1822 near the German village of Klütz. The locals shot it and stuffed it, and it is now in a museum in Rostock. This Pfeilstorch was crucial with regard to understanding the migration of European birds. Before migration was understood, people struggled to explain the sudden, annual disappearance of birds. Besides migration, some theories held in the past said that storks turned into other kinds of birds, mice, or even hibernated underwater during the winter. Pfeilstorch proved that birds can migrate such long distances in winter. The white stork is the national bird of Belarus. I think that today, we are all such storks with an arrow stuck in our body, functioning in different contexts, taking these projectiles to our new homes, workplaces, and integrating them into our life in exile.
Uladzimir Hramovich, Ghosts series, photographic print, ink, 2018. Photo by Uladzimir Hramovich
Uladzimir Hramovich, Ghosts series, photographic print, ink, 2018. Photo by Uladzimir Hramovich
Uladzimir Hramovich, Ghosts series, photographic print, ink, 2018. Photo by Uladzimir Hramovich
Uladzimir Hramovich, Ghosts series, photographic print, ink, 2018. Photo by Uladzimir Hramovich
Uladzimir Hramovich, Ghosts series, photographic print, ink, 2018. Photo by Uladzimir Hramovich
Uladzimir Hramovich is a Belarusian artist whose work specializes in the identity, history, and sociopolitical landscape of Belarus. To critically address the historical narrative and symbolism of Belarusian culture, he employs various media, including installation, video art, and performance. In his work, he often grapples with the tension between personal and collective histories, especially in the context of the complex political situation and state repression in Belarus, and portrays the resistance of Belarusian society during periods of political unrest. He lives and works in exile, in Berlin.
Zofia Nierodzińska is an author of texts, curator, visual artist, and academic lecturer. Deputy director of the Municipal Gallery Arsenał in Poznań in the years 2017-2022. She researches the art of post-socialist countries, migration, cultural accessibility, and social and interspecies activism. She studied at the University of the Arts in Poznań (doctorate) and at the Universität der Künste in Berlin (master’s degree). She lives and works in Berlin.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.