A collective of exiled Belarusian artists are presenting the atrocities of autocratic suppression to the Venice Biennale, the largest modern art festival. Belarus Free Theatre, established by political dissidents who have experienced imprisonment and torture under dictator Alexander Lukashenko’s rule, is presenting their inaugural art installation, called Official. Unofficial. Belarus. The ambitious multimedia project, produced in a Warsaw studio by artists, sculptors, composers and even a celebrated chef, converts the sights, sounds, smells and tastes of authoritarian oppression into a powerful artistic experience. Rather than a traditional theatrical performance, the display combines a installation of banned books, wheat installations, a iron crucifix laden with surveillance, and a bespoke dish created to convey the reality of imprisonment under an authoritarian regime.
From oppression to pavilion
The passage from Belarus to Venice has been anything but straightforward for Natalia Kaliada and Nicolai Khalezin, the theatre company’s co-founders. London-based since their exile in 2011, they have created some of Europe’s most provocative political drama, from the acclaimed Being Harold Pinter to the Olivier-nominated opera Dogs of Europe. Yet representing Belarus at the world’s most prestigious art festival remained a distant dream. Khalezin, himself a ex-curator, had once held aspirations to represent Belarus at Venice many years before, only to be informed by authorities that he could select artists only from an sanctioned roster. Under Alexander Lukashenko’s authoritarian rule since 1994, such artistic liberty has remained impossible.
This year, however, the vision has finally become reality—albeit not through the founders themselves. Instead, their daughter Daniella Kaliada has assumed leadership, directing the entire installation. Moving through the Warsaw studio in a baseball cap and loafers, she meticulously oversees every detail, from sanding newly purchased surveillance cameras to make them seem worn, to liaising with international collaborators. Her hands-on approach reflects the project’s deeply personal nature: sharing the hidden narratives of Belarusian suffering to the world stage, bypassing the censorship and control that silenced her parents’ voices for so long.
- Khalezin previously barred from selecting independent Belarusian artists by state officials
- Lukashenko has ruled Belarus since 1994, imprisoning thousands of political dissidents
- Daughter Daniella Kaliada now oversees the Venice Biennale installation project
- Inaugural visual art exhibition by Belarus Free Theatre, moving away from theatre conventions
Building sensory harm
The character of confinement
Perhaps the most remarkable element of the installation is a custom-created dish created by Rasmus Munk, recently named the world’s finest culinary talent. At his two Michelin star restaurant in Copenhagen, Munk has been creating a course designed to evoke the psychological and physical experience of imprisonment under an authoritarian regime. The dish represents a marked shift from conventional culinary practice, transforming the act of eating into a political gesture. Visitors to the Venice Biennale will literally consume the flavour of oppression, making the exhibition’s core themes in a visceral and unforgettable way real.
Complementing the gustatory assault is a custom fragrance created expressly for the installation. The fragrance has been designed to replicate an profoundly unsettling aroma: that of a freshly dug grave in the Belarusian countryside during late August, adorned with decaying blooms. This smell-based immersion transforms the display area into an fully engaging space where visitors cannot remain detached observers. By stimulating multiple sensory channels, the artists force audiences to face the harsh truth of state repression not as theoretical idea, but as tangible, visceral wound.
Sound and sculpture
The sonic environment of Official. Unofficial. Belarus. blends organ music with the mechanical whir of an angle-grinder, creating an disquieting sonic landscape that disorients and provokes. This auditory backdrop complements towering sculptural pieces, including a soaring iron crucifix topped with weathered surveillance cameras—symbols of constant state monitoring and control. The juxtaposition of sacred and profane imagery, coupled with the discordant soundtrack, produces a profoundly unsettling viewing experience. Every element has been intentionally selected to provoke, to remind visitors that in Belarus, even spiritual spaces offer no refuge from official oversight.
Central to the artistic story is Nicolai Khalezin’s controversial work: a massive ball constructed entirely from banned books. The sphere incorporates published texts prohibited by Lukashenko’s regime, such as children’s beloved titles like Harry Potter, Nobel Prize-winning author Svetlana Alexievich’s factual works, and an illustrated history of sexuality. This enormous sphere rests precariously upon the claw of a bulldozer—a symbolic representation for the regime’s systematic destruction of intellectual freedom. The installation converts censorship into physical reality, rendering the invisible machinery of repression starkly apparent to international audiences.
- Custom scent replicates tomb-like smells from Belarus rural landscape in late August
- Pipe organ sounds and angle-grinder sounds produce intentionally unsettling auditory landscape
- Surveillance cameras positioned atop metal cross symbolise ongoing governmental surveillance and control
Personal cost of artistic resistance
For the practitioners behind Official. Unofficial. Belarus., this exhibition represents far more than a curation project or creative endeavour. Numerous individuals engaged have paid an extraordinary personal toll for their commitment to documenting and exposing state violence. Natalia Kaliada and Nicolai Khalezin left Belarus in 2011 after years of harassment, confinement and torture at the hands of Lukashenko’s state apparatus. Their decision to create this piece at Venice’s most prestigious stage represents an act of defiance, turning pain into testimony. The display becomes a memorial to those enduring suffering under authoritarian rule, whilst at the same time acting as a warning to the worldwide community about the repercussions of unchecked state power.
The troupe’s members carry invisible scars alongside their creative expression. Several have experienced detention in Belarusian prisons enduring interrogation and physical abuse for their theatrical work. Others have observed the vanishing of fellow artists and associates into the apparatus of governmental control. Yet rather than suppress their voices, these experiences have deepened their artistic commitment. By bringing their stories to Venice, they ensure that the world must confront Belarus’s suffering. The installation becomes an act of remembrance and resistance simultaneously, honouring those whose voices have been suppressed by force by the regime.
Sacrifice and survival
The progression from political prisoner to international artist has been neither smooth nor without difficulty. Khalezin’s early career aspirations were undermined when state authorities tried to determine which artists could represent Belarus on the international platform. His rejection of government control of creative work led to increasing surveillance and intimidation. The decision to abandon his homeland was not undertaken without serious consideration; it constituted the loss of career connections, ties to loved ones, and the possibility of ever creating independently in Belarus again. Yet this forced separation from home also gave the separation and protection necessary to create ever more daring political creations.
Survival, for Belarus Free Theatre, has involved change and development. Headquartered in London, the company has kept making challenging work whilst at the same time developing worldwide collaborative partnerships. The Venice Biennale represents a pinnacle of this endurance plan—converting displacement from a state of deprivation into a position of artistic power. By resisting suppression or erased, these artists confirm that Belarus remains visible on the global platform, their work functioning as a constant testament that artistic freedom should never be presumed anywhere.
Questioning global credibility
The Venice Biennale exhibition carries significant political weight outside of its artistic merit. By displaying Belarus Free Theatre’s work on one of the planet’s most celebrated cultural stages, the installation actively undermines the international legitimacy that Alexander Lukashenko’s regime has long sought. The dictator has repeatedly tried to depict Belarus as a stable, culturally vibrant nation deserving of global acknowledgement and commercial relationships. This exhibition methodically deconstructs that deliberately built facade, revealing the reality of systematic repression, surveillance, and state violence that defines daily life within an authoritarian system.
The choice to present the work at Venice—rather than through conventional political channels or human rights groups—proves strategically important. Art possesses a distinctive capacity to transcend traditional diplomatic boundaries and connect with audiences who might otherwise reject political messaging as propaganda. By embedding accounts of torture, imprisonment, and fear within an immersive sensory encounter, the artists guarantee that international visitors cannot passively consume information about Belarus’s suffering. Instead, they are compelled to face the human cost of dictatorship through their bodies and emotions, producing lasting impressions that statistics and policy papers cannot achieve.
- The installation undermines regime’s worldwide reputation and cultural authority
- Physical encounter makes state oppression profoundly immediate for worldwide audiences
- Venice stage amplifies expatriate artists’ voices outside conventional political discourse
Youth taking the lead
What renders this Venice project particularly striking is that it has been orchestrated not by the theatre’s founding members, but by their daughter Daniella Kaliada. At an age when many of her peers are building conventional careers, she has taken the helm of one of the most ambitious artistic interventions at this year’s Biennale. Moving through the studio in a baseball cap and loafers, she carefully supervises every detail—from ensuring surveillance cameras are sanded to look weathered and authentic, to liaising with international artists and chefs. Her hands-on involvement signals a generational passing of the torch, with younger exiles refusing to let their homeland’s struggles fade from global consciousness.
Daniella’s leadership demonstrates a wider trend among Belarus’s diaspora: young people who grew up under Lukashenko’s rule are now channelling their experiences into artistic expression, activism, and cultural opposition. Rather than viewing exile as a setback, they are leveraging their displacement, converting trauma into testimony. This generational commitment ensures that Belarus stays a active focus rather than a past reference. By placing youth at the centre of this cultural opposition, BFT demonstrates that the fight against authoritarianism is not limited to those who recall pre-dictatorship life, but belongs equally to those shaped entirely by oppression.