Exercise books, 2020

The artist writes the slogans—join!, strike, solidarity is our weapon, every day, retirees for change—of the 2020 anti-government protests in Belarus in exercise books.

The artist juxtaposes revolutionary slogans with archival images of factory buildings. These images come from the artist’s family archive and include architectural drafts and photographs of industrial buildings created by her grandfather, Ivan Bovt, an architect involved in modern factory planning. Many of these factories are still in operation today, where, in the summer of 2020, workers called for a general strike.

The text is drawn in the form of cross-stitch using a red marker. Embroidery is linked to anonymous women’s labor, an artistic practice, and a form of knowledge passed down from mother to daughter. The Belarusian poet Valzhyna Mort writes about this tradition: “… Embroidered with red thread on white linen, the repeating pattern of Belarusian embroidery is a refrain, a song…”

“… If weaving holds the potential for resistance, as the experience of ancient weavers shows, does this mean that the song of war and violence can be transformed into something else? Something that does not fit into the violence/resistance dichotomy? Into something that can offer a multiplicity of permeable options? These questions weave hope.”
— From the novel Wound, by Oksana Vasyakina

Exhibition view: A Secret Museum of the Workers Movement, Kunstverein Hoast, Vienna.
Photography: Wolfgang Obermair