Belarus Free Theatre and the Ukrainian Pavilion at La Biennale di Venezia
- 6 days ago
- 3 min read
Updated: 2 days ago
The Belarus Free Theatre (BFT), an underground theatre group, presents Official. Unofficial. Belarus, a Collateral Event of the 61st International Art Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia, between 9 May and 22 November 2026 (pre-opening: 6–8 May 2026). La Biennale di Venezia is attended by the Managing Director of UBBC, Christophe Michels.
Natalia Kaliada and her husband Nicolai Khalezin, based in London since 2011, produce some of the most challenging political theatre of recent years, from 2007’s Being Harold Pinter to the Olivier-nominated opera King Stakh’s Wild Hunt. Khalezin has a desire to present Belarus at Venice decades ago, but is told by the government, “Here are the artists you can pick”. Since 1994, his homeland is controlled by the dictator and Putin ally Alexander Lukashenko, who steals the last two elections and imprisons thousands of opponents.
Instead, their daughter Daniella Kaliada masterminds this project. Daniella is first interrogated by the Belarusian KGB when she is eight and has a clear memory of the day her mother is arrested at a protest in 2010.
The exhibition, titled Official. Unofficial. Belarus, attempts to capture Natalia’s personal experience. For her, “Belarus is a unique authoritarian combination”. As a result, the exhibition reflects how art is “made, censored, and experienced under authoritarian power and constant surveillance”, according to an official description. It is important to highlight that more than half of this project is funded anonymously by Belarusian businesses, reflecting the power and fear of dictatorship.
As part of the exhibition, visitors are invited to participate in Chef Rasmus Munk’s sensory interpretation of a shared offering, reflecting themes of deprivation experienced by Belarusian political prisoners and the enforced silence of authoritarian power. Candles fill the church with a specially conceived scent – The Smell of Dictatorship – created with Ukrainian studio ol.factory. Visitors are invited to light candles and place them on an altar, accompanied by recordings of former prisoners’ stories – a powerful expression of what dictatorship smells and feels like.
As the title suggests, the Venice installation is not an official pavilion but a “collateral event” at the Chiesa di San Giovanni Evangelista, as pavilions must be requested by a ministry of culture. This year, for the first time since its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Russia has its official pavilion. According to Natalia, “it’s a failure of international law and institutions… Who is being legitimised? When the state says, ‘The pavilion is coming’, it means the machinery is coming, the money is coming”.
Russia’s pavilion is curated by Anastasia Karneeva, who runs an art consultancy with the daughter of Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov. Her father is an executive at Rostec, Russia’s largest defence contractor. Therefore, it is clear that it is state-connected at the highest levels, as highlighted by Daniella.
As expected, Russia’s pavilion becomes a focus for protest. Pussy Riot, on the second day of the preview, stage a protest. Wearing pink balaclavas, the protesters run towards the Russian pavilion, gather outside, and light pink, blue and yellow flares while playing punk music and shouting slogans, including “Blood is Russia’s Art”. This protest demonstrates support for those who experience the brutality of Russian actions, including Ukraine and Belarus.
The Ukrainian pavilion shows an exhibition with the title Security Guarantees. The Ukrainian pavilion’s project raises the issue of unfulfilled security guarantees, for which Ukraine gives up its nuclear arsenal. In 1994, three years after gaining independence, Ukraine joins the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons and relinquishes its nuclear arsenal in exchange for security guarantees from the US, the UK, and the Russian Federation. These states, along with Ukraine, become signatories to the Budapest Memorandum, which recognises Ukraine’s territorial integrity and commits the other three parties not only to refrain from threatening Ukraine, but to seek its protection should a threat arise.
The core of the project is Zhanna Kadyrova’s sculpture, The Origami Deer. Alongside this, the exhibition features archival materials related to the Budapest Memorandum, as well as video documentation of the sculpture’s evacuation and its journey to Venice, created with the participation of Natalka Dyaschenko, Pavel Sterec, and Max Maslo.
