A group of exiled Belarusian artists and former political prisoners are mounting a powerful installation at the Venice Biennale that documents the human cost of authoritarian rule, while Russia—despite its ongoing invasion of Ukraine—maintains an official state-sponsored pavilion at the prestigious international art event.
Belarus Free Theatre is presenting Official. Unofficial. Belarus., an installation capturing what organizers describe as "totalitarian terror" and the pervasive fear of surveillance and intimidation under the regime of Alexander Lukashenko, who has controlled Belarus since 1994. The work is being created in a Warsaw studio by individuals who have fled persecution, cutting golden wheat stems and assembling elements that include a giant ball made of books banned in Belarus—among them Harry Potter, works by Nobel prize winner Svetlana Alexievich, and an illustrated history of kink—resting on the claw of a bulldozer.
The Personal Cost of Dissent
The project is the first major art endeavor by Belarus Free Theatre and, unusually for the troupe, has no performance element. It has been created by painters, sculptors, composers and Rasmus Munk, who was recently voted the world's best chef. Munk has been concocting a dish at his two-Michelin-starred restaurant in Copenhagen that will taste of detention under an authoritarian regime, which is the subject of the entire installation. A scent has also been commissioned to smell like a freshly dug grave in the Belarus countryside in late August, laid with rotting flowers.
Belarus Free Theatre's co-founders, Natalia Kaliada and her husband Nicolai Khalezin, have been based in London since 2011. Khalezin said he had once wanted to represent Belarus at Venice decades ago, but was told by the government, "Here are the artists you can pick." He said that Lukashenko, a Putin ally, stole the last two elections and has imprisoned thousands of opponents.
Their daughter Daniella Kaliada, 26, has masterminded the project, making adjustments around an iron crucifix fitted with surveillance cameras that she sanded to look weathered. Painter Sergey Grinevich showed her a new addition, a smear of green and white paint meant to look like seagull poo, but she wiped it off, saying it was too much.
Stories of Detention and Terror
Daniella said she was first interrogated by the Belarusian KGB when she was eight and remembers the day her mother was arrested at a protest in 2010. "Nikolai was at home and the doorbell went at 5am. I looked through the peephole and saw six men wearing masks. We sat in the house for six hours, with the doorbell continuously going, our dog barking and the phone ringing. When it stopped, the silence was deafening," she said.
Natalia said she was detained for 20 hours and threatened with rape. "You go numb, because the worst thing is not to have any control," she said. She also said friends were jailed for months and years, and that the husband of Daniella's godmother was kidnapped and killed. Daniella said, "In jail, you don't understand what will happen. And in that moment, your brain freezes."
The installation is intended to capture both the numbness of the detained and the fear of those left behind, and to make a wider point about digital curbs to personal freedoms. Daniella said, "Belarus is a unique authoritarian combination, but we can all relate to the idea of surveillance." Natalia said, "In Belarus, I could go with friends to talk in the woods and leave the phone. Now it doesn't matter whether you leave your phone – there will be drones. There is no place for a human to be safe."
Russia's State-Sponsored Presence
The Venice installation is not an official pavilion but a collateral event at the Chiesa di San Giovanni Evangelista, because pavilions have to be requested by a ministry of culture. This year, for the first time since its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Russia has an official pavilion. Natalia said, "It's a failure of international law and institutions. It's inseparable from the world failure on Ukraine. 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 biggest defence contractor. Daniella said, "It is state-connected at the highest levels." The Kaliadas hope the pavilion will become a focus for protest, with Pussy Riot promising a takeover, and prompt a review of the biennale's constitution. Daniella said, "To allow any country to participate, regardless of politics, is outdated. If the Olympics can change, why not the biennale?"
Composer Olga Podgaiskaya said her husband was kidnapped on a visit to Belarus last November, detained for 15 days and tortured. "I wanted to scream. But when somebody goes to jail, you can't be loud because they get beaten up," she said. She hopes people can hear that trauma in her 20-minute organ piece for Venice, which is "a reminder that evil lives very close by. I also hope the government people who are watching us constantly – I hope I might heal them slightly." Daniella said, "Of course," when asked whether the KGB are among the audience, adding, "We're very close to the border. If you think we're not being followed – well, we are."
Grinevich said he left Belarus to be there and may never go back. "I stand to lose a lot," he said, including his workshop, 500 art works and "the very beautiful house I built." Before Lukashenko's rule, Grinevich painted Soviet propaganda, including portraits of Lenin and murals for army buildings. He said today's state art is "over-sexualised and amateurish," marked by devotion to power rather than skill.
Natalia said Belarus is no longer home but a collection of memories, including her mother's pancakes and walks in the woods. She said their apartment was seized after they left and friends had to delete any trace of contact with them. She said more than half of the project has been funded anonymously by Belarusian businesses. She said it feels especially important at a time when borders everywhere are tightening, and added that the fear instilled by an authoritarian regime takes a long time to ebb, if ever. "That if somebody knocks on the door, it means I or Nicolai will be arrested. Daniella told me a couple of years ago, on a walk in Hyde Park, 'It's only now that I am slowly getting rid of that.'" Official. Unofficial. Belarus. is at Chiesa di San Giovanni Evangelista at the Venice Biennale, 9 May – 22 November.
Why This Matters:
The contrast between privately funded exiles scrambling for legitimacy and Russia's state-sponsored pavilion at Venice exposes fundamental questions about international institutions and their willingness to enforce standards. While Belarus Free Theatre operates as a collateral event—dependent on anonymous donations from businesses fleeing authoritarianism—Russia's defense-contractor-connected pavilion enjoys official status despite ongoing aggression in Ukraine. The installation documents not just historical repression but the ongoing reality of surveillance states and their long reach across borders. The artists' testimonies of property seizure, forced exile, and severed contacts illustrate the tangible costs of political dissent. Their reliance on private funding and the courage of anonymous Belarusian business donors demonstrates how civil society and private enterprise often bear the burden of resistance when international frameworks fail to hold authoritarian regimes accountable. The question of institutional legitimacy—whether cultural organizations should maintain neutrality toward aggressor states—remains unresolved.