Neseine Toholya is a researcher, interdependent with the world, practices decolonial queer, produces text and other artistic products. Born from the spirit of the era, she graduated from the Pedagogical College in Salekhard, the Smolny Institute of Noble Maidens, and the IEP in Prague; currently is a Fellow at the IASS Potsdam. Neseine composes art of varying severity, is in search of meaning, stands for goodness and justice. She likes Sailor Moon and other Japanese cartoons.
Ekaterina Ruskevich is an art historian with a specialization in Soviet monumental painting. She is holding a Master’s degree in Philosophical Anthropology.
Natalia (Tasha) Kotsuba is a Belarusian artist born in 1995. Kotsuba graduated from Belarusian State Pedagogical University named after Maxim Tank (years of studies 2012—2017) with a specialization in Fine Art, Drawing and Folk Art Crafts.
‘Mesca znahodzhannya’, Minsk, Center for Contemporary Arts (2015). Collective exhibition. Participant.
‘LOWBROW’, Minsk, ‘Verkh’ Art Space (2016). Collective exhibition. Participant.
‘Night swimming’, Vitebsk, ‘VZAP’ Art Space (2017). Solo exhibition.
‘Autumn Salon’, Minsk, Palace of Art (2017). Art market. Participant.
Collective exhibition of young Belarusian artists, Vilnius, Arka Gallery (2018). Participant.
‘Autumn Salon’, Minsk, Palace of Art (2018). Art market. Participant.
‘Here and Now’, Minsk, SQUAT Art Space (2018). Collective exhibition. Participant.
‘HIDDEN’, Vitebsk, ‘VZAP’ Art Space (2018). Collective exhibition. Participant.
‘Museum Night’, Minsk, Palace of Arts (2019). Collective exhibition. Participant.
‘Autumn Salon’, Minsk, Palace of Art (2018). Art market. First Place Award.
‘HOME’, Minsk, Palace of Art (2020). Solo exhibition.
Lizaveta Mikhalchuk is an art historian, curator, and art critic. She studied at the European Humanities University (Minsk – Vilnius). Interned at the Graduate School of Arts (Brest, France). Since 2017, Mikhalchuk has been a curator of the KX Space gallery.
Anna Engelhardt (b. 1994, Russia) is a media artist, researcher, and writer based in London. Her main interests are the (de)colonial politics of algorithmic and logistical infrastructures in post-Soviet space. Anna is currently conducting her PhD on the electromagnetic infrastructure of Russian cyber warfare at Queen Mary, UoL, under the supervision of Laleh Khalili and Elke Schwarz. She is a part of the Digital Democracies Institute, where she contributes to ‘Cyberwar Topologies: In Struggle for a post-American Internet’ project with her research on Russian cyber warfare. Anna’s recent projects include: Machinic Infrastructures of Truth (2020), an inquiry into the production of algorithmic surveillance, presented at Transmediale as a part of ‘Adversarial Hacking’ symposium; Adversarial Infrastructure (2019), an investigation of how the Russian Crimean Bridge functions according to principles of adversarial machine learning, presented at Ars Electronica Kepler’s Gardens and 67th International Short Film Festival Oberhausen. With Sasha Shestakova, Anna is a co-founder of the research unit Distributed Cognition Cooperative.
Photographer, photo critic, photobook reviewer, lecturer and translator. Has Master’s Degree in General Pedagogy, graduated from Minsk State Linguistic University, majoring in English and Italian; English, American and Italian literature.
Since the late 1990s, has been engaged in cultural journalism: collaborates with a number of Belarusian and foreign paper-based and online mass media outlets. Regularly writes about photography for “Bird in Flight” online magazine (Ukraine) and Photographer.ru site (Russia) since 2016 being in charge of “Tomorrow’s Photography with Olga Bubich” column and photobook reviews. In 2016-2017 had the experience of “Bleek Magazine” co-editing.
Since 2016 has been a member of the team of “The Month of Photography in Minsk” festival.
The author of “Conversations about the rules of the game” book with essays and photographs (2009, “Logvinau” Publishing House, Minsk) and “Bigger than I” photobook dedicated to the phenomenon of “Chernobyl kids” (2019). In January 2020, the photobook was presented at “Booked” Tai Kwun Festival in Hong Kong and became a part of the collections of photobook museums in Hong Kong and Gothenburg.
Studied photography at workshops of Claudine Dory, Xavier Fernando Fuentes, Alexey Nikishin, Andrey Polikanov and Tatiana Plotnikova. Is a participant of about 20 collective and solo exhibitions in Belarus, Russia, Ukraine, Armenia, Latvia, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands. Curated 3 exhibitions of young Belarusian photographers.
A.Pashkevich is a pseudonym that the author of this text has asked the platform editor to use due to personal safety reasons.
Andrey Vozyanov is a social anthropologist (Ph.D. in Social Anthropology), sound-designer and lo-fi musician (kate in the box, Novy Byt) based in Minsk. Since 2016 he is a researcher and editor at Minsk Urban Platform and is currently working on a podcast show about post-Soviet urbanism which he questions from the perspective of a Minsk citizen. Since 2018 he has been teaching media and communications at European Humanities University, Vilnius. In 2020 he developed a lockdown podcast Excursions Through an Mp3-player, which came out of Facebook audio-diary, drawings, and seminars, but remained unreleased due to the events of summer 2020 in Belarus.
Nadya Sayapina is an artist and art educator born and based in Minsk. Her artistic practices include performance, installation, land art, painting, and text. She explores mediation in art through the performative and processual practices, and works with the topics of body, self-reflection, memory, and feminism.
Sonia Hedstrand is an artist, writer, and teacher who works at the intersection between documentary film, art installation, and sociological investigation, through mediums like text, video, photography, and performance. She is an alumna of the Whitney Independent Study Program 2012, and holds an MFA from The Royal Institute of Art in Stockholm 2011 and has done six years of studies in Humanities at Stockholm University 1995–2001. She has worked as an art critic and reporter, and participated in several artistic collaborations and collectives. In her latest research-based project Life in 2.5 dimensions, Sonia analyzes, through documentary field work as well as work-theory, the increased incidence of emotional, performative, and aesthetic labor, especially with a focus on the Japanese experience-economy with relationships for rent.