POKUĆ
Nadya Sayapina
Artist Nadya Sayapina is implementing the project “Pokuć,” exploring the search for Belarusian identity in a state of exile. It examines how the experience of forced emigration is reflected in both traditional / classical and contemporary culture. The project also explores how the endless search for “Belarusianness” has become a defining feature of Belarusian self-determination.
In Sayapina’s works, the “corner” is the main visual-semantic image. It serves as a tag, a refrain for defining the Motherland and its semantic complexity: a “native corner” or a “red corner,” a place of safety, a place of exile, a method of punishment.
The artist interviews Belarusian cultural figures in exile and creates a series of drawings, objects, and a video performance, collaborating with sound artist Yauhen Buldyk during the Mochnarte residency.
︎︎︎ video
︎︎︎ website
︎︎︎ Nadya Sayapina ︎
Nadya Sayapina was born in Minsk, Belarus, in 1989. She graduated in Arts and Crafts from the Belarusian State University of Culture and Arts in 2011 and obtained a Master in Art Studies at the National Academy of Sciences of Belarus in 2012. She attended educational programs at the “Ў” Gallery of Contemporary Art in 2016 and the Art Prospect Intensive in Socially Engaged Art, organised by CEC ArtsLink, in 2019. Nadya left Belarus in 2020 after serving an arrest for an anti-violence art campaign. She was a fellow of the Goethe Institute, MRI, and CEC ArtsLink in 2021–2022. She debuted as a set designer for the opera King Stakh’s Wild Hunt by Belarus Free Theatre at the Barbican Centre, London, in 2023. Nadya has exhibited extensively since 2009. She is currently based in Warsaw, Poland.
In Sayapina’s works, the “corner” is the main visual-semantic image. It serves as a tag, a refrain for defining the Motherland and its semantic complexity: a “native corner” or a “red corner,” a place of safety, a place of exile, a method of punishment.
The artist interviews Belarusian cultural figures in exile and creates a series of drawings, objects, and a video performance, collaborating with sound artist Yauhen Buldyk during the Mochnarte residency.
︎︎︎ video
︎︎︎ website
︎︎︎ Nadya Sayapina ︎
Nadya Sayapina was born in Minsk, Belarus, in 1989. She graduated in Arts and Crafts from the Belarusian State University of Culture and Arts in 2011 and obtained a Master in Art Studies at the National Academy of Sciences of Belarus in 2012. She attended educational programs at the “Ў” Gallery of Contemporary Art in 2016 and the Art Prospect Intensive in Socially Engaged Art, organised by CEC ArtsLink, in 2019. Nadya left Belarus in 2020 after serving an arrest for an anti-violence art campaign. She was a fellow of the Goethe Institute, MRI, and CEC ArtsLink in 2021–2022. She debuted as a set designer for the opera King Stakh’s Wild Hunt by Belarus Free Theatre at the Barbican Centre, London, in 2023. Nadya has exhibited extensively since 2009. She is currently based in Warsaw, Poland.
