BFT @ LA BIENNALE DI VENEZIA

OFFICIAL. UNOFFICIAL. BELARUS.

DONATE AT THE BIENNALE

— ABOUT

BANNED AT HOME. STAGED IN VENICE.

Described by The New York Times as “one of the bravest and most inspired underground troupes on the planet”, Belarus Free Theatre is the only theatre in Europe banned by its own government on political grounds. From exile, they bring Official. Unofficial. Belarus. to La Biennale di Venezia - a work made about surveillance, under surveillance.

@belarusfreetheatre @official.unofficial.belarus

— VISIT

FIND THE DOOR.

Dates: 9 May to 22 November 2026
Opening hours: Tuesday to Sunday, 10:00–18:00Closed Mondays
Free Admission: Free entry
Location: Chiesa di San Giovanni Evangelista (Church of San Giovanni Evangelista)
Address: S. Polo 2454, 30125 Venice VE, Italy

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Full visitor information is published by La Biennale di Venezia: labiennale.org

— WORKS

IMMERSE ALL FIVE SENSES IN AN INDEPENDENT BELARUS

Brand new site-specific paintings by Sergey Grinevich; a bespoke soundscape and new organ composition by Olga Podgayskaya; large-scale sculptural interventions by Vladimir Tsesler, Nicolai Khalezi MBE, Daniella Kaliada and Natalia Kaliada MBE; a scent concept from Ukrainian olfactory innovators; ol.factory; an edible shared offering from Danish wonderchef, Rasmus Munk; and an audio installation featuring: Gillian Anderson, Sir Stephen Fry, Jude Law, Dame Joanna Lumley and Ruth Wilson. La Chiesa di San Giovanni Evangelista — 9 May to 22 November.

SOUND INSTALLATION

In an adjacent private cemetery, an immersive sound installation of recorded testimonials by recently released Belarusian political prisoners permeates the space.

To protect their anonymity, all former prisoners' testimonials featured in the audio installation are voiced by leading stage and screen actors: Gillian Anderson, Sir Stephen Fry, Jude Law (who is also a long-standing Trustee of BFT), Dame Joanna Lumley and Ruth Wilson.

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— PARTICIPANTS

A PAVILION WITHOUT BORDERS

Official. Unofficial. Belarus.:“a dazzling dissident pavilion” (The Financial Times) and The Art Newspaper’s “best unofficial pavilion”

DOSSIER 01
— Curator
Daniella Alexandra Kaliada
b. 2000, Minsk
Daniella Alexandra Kaliada (b. 2000, Minsk, Belarus) Daniella Kaliada is the curator of Official. Unofficial. Belarus., together with Natalia Kaliada MBE. Daniella is a curator and cultural producer working across contemporary art and political context in Eastern Europe. She has chaired public discussions at DOX Centre for Contemporary Art in Prague, was a guest speaker at the Martin E. Segal Centre in New York and curated a photography exhibition by Anna Goltsberg following the outbreak of the...
DOSSIER 02
— Co-curator · Director
Natalia Kaliada MBE
Minsk
Natalia Kaliada MBE is the co-curator of Official. Unofficial. Belarus., together with Daniella Kaliada. Natalia is the co-founding Artistic Director of BFT, an award-winning theatre-maker, writer and director. At the helm of “one of the bravest and most inspired underground troupes on the planet” (The New York Times) for the past two decades, she works boldly across art forms, embracing hybrid, multi-disciplinary creation. Over the past two decades, her distinctive visual signature has...
DOSSIER 03
— Conceptual Artist · Playwright
Nicolai Khalezin MBE
b. 1964, Minsk
Nicolai is a Belarusian playwright, curator, and cultural strategist whose work occupies a critical position at the intersection of art, politics, and civil resistance. Over more than three decades, Khalezin has developed a practice that treats culture not as representation but as action, positioning artistic production as a form of public accountability in environments shaped by censorship and repression. In the 1990s, following the collapse of the Soviet Union, Khalezin became a central...
DOSSIER 04
— Painter
Sergey Grinevich
b. 1960, Grodno
Sergey Grinevich is a Belarusian painter and one of the most prominent representatives of the country’s unofficial art movement. A graduate of the Belarusian State Academy of Arts (1983), he has been active for over four decades as an artist and teacher, and is a member of the Belarusian Union of Artists. Grinevich’s painting is rooted in figurative traditions while opening into contemporary experimentation. His monumental figures and vibrant colour palette are marked by irony, play, and...
DOSSIER 05
— Conceptual Artist
Vladimir Tsesler
b. 1951, Minsk
Tsesler is one of the most influential and uncompromising figures in contemporary Belarusian art, internationally recognised for a visual language that fuses conceptual rigour, political acuity, and biting irony. Working across graphic art, sculpture, installation, and public interventions, Tsesler has spent more than four decades developing a practice that resists authoritarian aesthetics while exposing the absurdities and violences embedded in power. Born in 1951 in Minsk, Tsesler came of age...
DOSSIER 06
— Composer · Organist
Olga Podgayskaya
b. 1979, Minsk
Olga Podgayskaya is a Belarusian composer and organist whose work bridges sacred traditions and contemporary experimentation. A graduate of the Belarusian State Academy of Music and the Haute École de Musique in Geneva, she is recognised both as a performer of early and modern organ repertoire and as a composer of original works that explore ritual, silence, and transcendence. She has performed across Europe and collaborated with ensembles and festivals devoted to contemporary music. Her...
DOSSIER 07
— Chef · Conceptual Artist
Rasmus Munk
b. 1991, Randers
Rasmus Munk is a Danish chef and conceptual artist, internationally recognised for his radical, cross-disciplinary practice that merges gastronomy, performance, and activism. He is co-owner and head chef of Alchemist in Copenhagen, which has been awarded two Michelin stars and named one of the top five restaurants in the world by The World’s 50 Best Restaurants. Munk’s work redefines dining as a total artwork (gesamtkunstwerk), bringing together taste, science, theatre, and social critique. His...
DOSSIER 08
— Olfactory Artists
ol.factory
Scent studio, Kyiv
Ukrainian scent studio built on the idea that smell communicates what images and words cannot. Founded in Kyiv by Khrystyna Kurhanska, ol.factory works across bespoke fragrance development, aroma branding and commercial scent design, treating an aroma as a strategic extension of identity rather than decoration. For Venice the studio made The Smell of Dictatorship with Daniella Kaliada and Natalia Kaliada - the atmosphere of confinement rendered as a nebulised concentrate.

— PRESS

WHAT THE PRESS SAID

What the press said about Official. Unofficial. Belarus.

— VOICES

FRIENDS OF BELARUS FREE THEATRE.

— Nobel Laureate in Literature

“I wish to warmly welcome the opening of the national “pavilion” of the independent Belarus at the Venice Biennale, presented by Belarus Free Theatre, which continues to fight for the rights of Belarusian artists to represent their work on the world stage. We were forced to leave Belarus. Our homeland was taken from us. But we did not surrender. We carried it with us in our hearts and continue to build a future Belarus in our minds and in our dreams, so that one day we may return home with new ideas, new visions, and without losing our place in history, without losing the future.”

Svetlana Alexievich

— Long-standing friend and Trustee, Belarus Free Theatre

“For more than 20 years I have shared a path with Belarus Free Theatre; I am proud to be their friend and Trustee. Being part of this, the first independent Belarus presence at the Venice Biennale, is both a thrill and an honour. Those who are silenced will be heard on the world stage of contemporary art. In times when humankind is challenged in unprecedented ways, Belarus Free Theatre continues to create hope that we can all hold onto through their trailblazing art.”

Jude Law

— Long-standing friend and supporter of Belarus Free Theatre

“Tom Stoppard introduced me to the incredibly brave and valiant Belarus Free Theatre many years ago: it has been very humbling and great privilege to do the smallest things to help them and I am proud to be their friend. As an actress and writer and presenter in the UK, I feel a huge sympathetic responsibility to try to publicise some of the hardship that others, just like me, are enduring in Belarus. Their stories are gut-wrenching but their objective is as simple as daylight: freedom in the creative arts, and safety from prosecution and imprisonment. That they have a ‘pavilion’ in the great city of Venice is thrilling and well-deserved. I support them with my heart and soul.”

Dame Joanna Lumley

— Q&A

THE QUESTIONS WE GET ASKED.

More about Belarus Free Theatre and Official. Unofficial. Belarus.

Who is Belarus Free Theatre?
Belarus Free Theatre (BFT) is a world-class non-profit with a 20+year track record of award-winning stage productions, documentary films, exhibitions, artist education programmes and global campaigns. Described by The New York Times as “one of the bravest and most inspired underground troupes on the planet”, its co-founding Artistic Directors, Natalia Kaliada and Nicolai Khalezin, were awarded the MBE for Services to Theatre in the 2023 King's Birthday Honours.
Critically and publicly acclaimed for its provocative and breathtakingly physical theatre - more than 50 stage productions performed in over 40 countries - BFT was nominated for an Olivier Award in 2024 for the opera King Stakh's Wild Hunt, which received its world premiere at the Barbican Theatre in London.
The ability to innovate and transform is one of the company's defining characteristics. On theatre stages, in art galleries and football stadiums, in schools and on screens big and small, it keeps a signature born from a visceral, personal understanding of the price of freedom and our responsibility to protect it. BFT Life Patrons include Sir Tom Stoppard, Harold Pinter and President Václav Havel.
Theatre
Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) for Services to Theatre — 2023
Olivier Award nomination, Outstanding Achievement in Opera, King Stakh's Wild Hunt — 2024
OffWestEnd Award, KS6: Small Forward — 2026
The Stage International Award — 2021
Drama Desk nomination, Being Harold Pinter — 2011
OBIE Award, Discover Love / Being Harold Pinter / Zone of Silence — 2011
Human rights
Magnitsky Prize, for work in human rights and anti-corruption — 2020
Human Rights Foundation's Václav Havel Prize for Creative Dissent — 2018
Freedom Award, presented by the Atlantic Council at its Wrocław Global Forum — 2011
Human Rights Prize of the French Republic — 2007
US State Department Meritorious Honour Award for Personal Bravery and Courage, to Natalia Kaliada — 2000 and 2001
Where does BFT stand politically?
BFT is one of the country's leading resistance movements against the dictatorship, operating entirely from exile as the only theatre in Europe banned by its government on political grounds. Its artistic leadership are political refugees from Belarus, based in the UK since 2011, and hold prominent roles in international human rights advocacy.
Founded in 2005, making, teaching and performing theatre in Minsk under Europe's last dictatorship, BFT was forced to operate underground. In 2011, after years of intimidation, arrests and imprisonment for making theatre, co-founding Artistic Directors Natalia Kaliada and Nicolai Khalezin, together with their daughter Daniella Kaliada, were forced to leave Belarus and were granted political asylum in the UK.
With its ensemble of actors still inside the country, BFT pioneered making theatre at a distance over Zoom, well before the pandemic moved the rest of the working world onto the same platform. In winter 2021 the company relocated its 16-strong acting ensemble and their family members out of Belarus to safety, in response to the severe risk of reprisals they faced as some of the most prominent opponents of the regime.
Since then BFT has operated entirely from exile, creating ambitious stage productions that tour worldwide from its permanent home in London, alongside running a theatre laboratory in Poland for children and adults displaced by the war in Ukraine and the dictatorship in Belarus.
How can BFT make compelling art about Belarus from exile?
Since 1994, artists in Belarus who engage critically with the dictatorship have been forced to work in exile, in secrecy, or under threat of imprisonment. BFT has known all of these conditions: years of intimidation, arrests and imprisonment for making theatre, the exile of its artistic directorship in 2011, and of its acting ensemble in 2021.
The mission has not changed in exile. For two decades the company has conceived and directed award-winning productions that articulate the harsh realities of everyday life in Belarus, shine a light on taboos at home, and call for accountability on the world stage.
Those productions still reach audiences back home. The opera King Stakh's Wild Hunt was streamed over the festive period in 2023 to more than 60,000 Belarusian households. BFT's YouTube series Grating with Khalezin has passed 10 million views across 132 episodes, helping Belarusian viewers understand the mechanisms of post-truth and propaganda, with fresh perspectives on peaceful activism and free expression. Guests have included Sir Stephen Fry, two-Michelin-starred chef Rasmus Munk, Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, and Boombox rockstar frontman Andriy Khlyvnyuk, best known for his collaboration with Pink Floyd at the outset of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
How was this group of artists and collaborators convened?
Official. Unofficial. Belarus. brings together a collective of leading contemporary artists for a world-first collaboration. Many are Belarusian artists who - like BFT - have been persecuted by the regime and forced into exile, from where they fearlessly drive forward a vibrant Belarusian independent culture that exists in parallel to the state.
They stand alongside the Ukrainian olfactory innovators ol.factory; Denmark's extraordinary culinary provocateur, Chef Rasmus Munk; and long-standing friends and supporters of BFT: Gillian Anderson, Sir Stephen Fry, Jude Law (BFT Trustee), Dame Joanna Lumley and Ruth Wilson - who have given their voices to the testimonials of recently released Belarusian political prisoners in the sound installation Voice Overs.
Together they form an artistic constellation that is impossible to ignore, one no state institution could ever assemble, signalling that Belarusian independent culture - not the regime - holds cultural authority, and deserves its rightful place on the world stage.
How did a Chef become part of an artistic project?
Natalia Kaliada MBE first met Chef Rasmus Munk in 2024, following a surprise dinner organised by her husband and daughter at Munk's restaurant, Alchemist, in Copenhagen. She describes meeting him as “like meeting a soul mate who is like BFT, but in the world of culinary arts”.
BFT has worked with food as a tool for provocation for more than 20 years - memorably in the stage production Trash Cuisine - and wanted to bring food to the Venice Biennale and celebrate it as art. That is where the idea originated: to invite Rasmus into the development of a sensory deprivation journey, and the creation of “a texture that dissolves leaving hope as an aftertaste”.
Where were the artworks created? Did they come out of Belarus?
No artworks came out of Belarus. The majority were created in Warsaw, where BFT has had its European base since its complete exile from Belarus in 2021.
Elsewhere: Taste of Nothing was developed by Chef Rasmus Munk together with Daniella Kaliada and Natalia Kaliada MBE at Munk's restaurant Alchemist in Copenhagen; The Smell of Dictatorship candles were created in Kyiv with the Ukrainian studio ol.factory; and the concept for Confessional of the System was originated by Natalia Kaliada MBE with Daniella Kaliada, with the code built at MIT in Cambridge, Massachusetts, supported by a grant from MIT's Social and Ethical Responsibilities in Computing.
How does Confessional of the System work?
CCTV cameras on the exterior of the confessional track people moving near it. Inside the kiosk, three large screens play that live footage back. As you sit and watch, a hidden camera looks for a human face; when it finds someone looking at the screens, it captures a burst of frames.
The portrait is dispatched to a battery of public reverse-image and facial-recognition services, each asked the same question: who is this person, and where else does this face appear? The results return in fragments — matches, profiles, probability scores — and the engine assembles them into a dossier. Your live camera image is shown overlaid with face-tracking statistics and the dossier information. Some of what appears is real, some is fabricated to fit the form. You cannot tell which is which, and that is the point.
The dossier is held on screen long enough to be read, long enough to be uncomfortable. After 40 seconds it fades and is replaced by a line of text: “You were watching. Now you are the one being watched.” Then every frame, every file, every trace of the session is destroyed. The installation retains nothing. The kiosk returns to its quiet grid, watching the room again.
Technically, the work uses open-source face detection (OpenCV) to find faces in frame - it cannot identify people or track them biometrically. The captured photograph is run as a reverse image search against publicly available image databases and a database of open-source celebrity images. Many of the categories and results are simulated, to give the impression of a surveillance tool without ever collecting data at that level. Once the experience ends, all data is purged completely: no photographs and no records are kept. Nothing is stored, and the installation complies with EU GDPR requirements.
Whose testimonies are heard in the exhibition, and how were they gathered?
Since 2021 BFT has been based between London and Poland. In Warsaw it is a co-founder of the Belarusian Centre for Solidarity, which works with refugees from Ukraine and recently released political prisoners from Belarus. The testimonials were given on a voluntary basis by individuals working with BFT at the Centre.
They are presented anonymously, for fear of reprisals against loved ones and relatives back in Belarus - many of whom are still in prison. British actors came together to read these testimonials - Gillian Anderson, Sir Stephen Fry and Ruth Wilson – and to frame these stories within an audio collection where “home” emerges not as a fixed place, but as a structure formed through memory, language and repetition.
Why is BFT supporting the maintenance of antique artworks in the Chiesa di San Giovanni Evangelista church?
As a collective of exiled artists, Belarus Free Theatre is committed to the importance of preserving cultural heritage. During the exhibition period, BFT is financing the cleaning of the four antique paintings usually housed in the Chiesa di San Giovanni Evangelista, namely: Painting by a student of Padovanino, “Madonna del Carmelo che consegna lo scapolare a San Simon Stock” XVII sec. Painting of the “Martirio di San Sebastiano”, 1540 - 1605; Painting by Pietro Ricchi, “Martirio di Santa Barbara”, 1606 - 1675; Dipinto by Antonio Vassilacchi detto Aliense, “San Giacomo Apostolo”, 1556 - 1629. Unlike many exhibitors, BFT’s residency in Venice extends beyond presentation. Alongside exhibiting their own work, they are committed to helping safeguard historic artefacts and sustain Venetian heritage for generations to come.
Madonna del Carmelo che consegna lo scapolare a San Simon Stock, by a student of Padovanino, 17th century
Martirio di San Sebastiano, 1540–1605
Martirio di Santa Barbara, by Pietro Ricchi, 1606–1675
San Giacomo Apostolo, by Antonio Vassilacchi, known as Aliense, 1556–1629

— SUPPORT

STAND WITH BELARUS FREE THEATRE.

Belarus Free Theatre is a world-class non-profit, with a 20-year track-record championing democracy, defending freedoms and confronting injustices through award-winning stage productions, documentary films, exhibitions, artist education programmes and global campaigns. Support today and become part of its incredible story.

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