Here at Usmaradio we consider Official. Unofficial. Belarus one of the most interesting and beautiful pavilions of the 2026 Biennale Arte.
Belarus Free Theatre (BFT) presents Official. Unofficial. Belarus., a Collateral Event of the 61st Venice Biennale. Curated by Daniella Kaliada with Natalia Kaliada MBE, 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 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 introduces international audiences to independent Belarusian art today.
The exhibition creates a twilight zone between spiritual tradition and a totalitarian present, conjuring Belarus through all five senses. In the church, new, site-specific paintings by Sergey Grinevich (b. 1960, Grodno) subvert the conventions of the altar panels, inserting a meditation on the end of privacy into the language of religious iconography. Sounds of Silence, a new organ composition by Olga Podgayskaya (b. 1981, Minsk), alternates between crescendo and reverberating silence.
A 2.5-metre sphere composed of books banned in Belarus, originally designed by Nicolai Khalezin (b.1964, Minsk), is compressed within a crushed bulldozer claw. The sculpture positions the erasure of ideas via the act of banning literature as an attempt to curb critical thinking and foster compliance.
Visitors also encounter Surveillance Crucifix, a sculptural cross constructed from analogue CCTV cameras and repurposed railway tracks, embodying the quiet violence of being observed. It collapses the distinction between watcher and watched, questioning dynamics of power and allowing surveillance to enter the sacred space. This work corresponds with Confessional of the System, where visitors step inside confessionals and are confronted with a biometric encounter, showing that the most effective form of control is not the act of surveillance itself, but the widespread acceptance of its inevitable presence.
In an adjacent private cemetery, audio testimonials by recently released Belarusian political prisoners examine the question of what it means to lose one’s home. To protect their anonymity, all former prisoners’ testimonials within the exhibition are voiced by leading actors: Gillian Anderson, Sir Stephen Fry, Jude Law (BFT Trustee), Dame Joanna Lumley, and Ruth Wilson. Here the recordings unfold alongside new large-scale metal sculptures by Vladimir Tsesler (b. 1951, Slutsk).
Reimagining the Belarusian straw spider—traditionally hung from the ceiling to maintain balance in the home—Tsesler transforms a delicate folk emblem into a calcified structure forged from a material of confinement. An accompanying installation of wheat—present in labour, ritual and craft in Belarus—is ordered and regulated, at once familiar and unnatural, reflecting an imposed system in dialogue with Tsesler’s works.
As part of the exhibition, at designated times, visitors will be invited to participate in Chef Rasmus Munk’s (b. 1991, Randers) sensory interpretation of a shared offering, reflecting on 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 the candles and place them on an altar, accompanied by additional recordings of former prisoners’ stories.
During the exhibition, BFT is supporting the maintenance of four antique paintings in the Chiesa di San Giovanni Evangelista, including Martirio di Santa Barbara by Pietro Ricchi (1606–1675), and San Giacomo Apostolo by Antonio Vassilacchi detto Aliense (1556–1629).
Belarus Free Theatre(BFT) is a world-class contemporary performance non-profit with a 20-year track-record of artistic excellence.Critically and publicly acclaimed for their provocative and breathtakingly physical theatre –totalling more than 50 stage productions performed in more than 40 countries around the world–BFT wasOlivier Award nominated in 2024, and its co-founding Artistic Directors,Natalia Kaliada and Nicolai Khalezin, were awarded the Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) for Services to Theatre in the 2023 King’s Birthday Honours. More than atheatre, BFT createsa ward-winning documentary films ,exhibitions, artist education programmes and global campaigns, harnessing the power of the original and unexpected to direct the attention ofthe publictowards some of the most urgent issues of our time. BFT’s astonishing ability to innovate and transform is one of their defining characteristics, and wherever they are found –ontheatre stages, in art galleries andi nfootball stadiums, in schools and on screens big and small–they have a signature that is uniquely theirs, born from a visceral, personal understanding of the price of freedom and our responsibility to protect it. BFT Life Patrons include Sir Tom Stoppard, Harold Pinter and President Václav Havel.
Attribution: Daniella. in “Usmaradio” for the radio program “Voces” by Roberto Paci Dalò, recorded in Venice, April 2026, cc by-sa all.
