FLIGHT 2021

Action
2021
Museum-Studio of Zaire Azgur, Minsk, Belarus

24 min

...The second edition of the action, which took place with the audience and Volha Maslouskaya during the Performensk festival at the Zair Azgur Museum in Minsk, on September 5, 2021. This version is presented in the artists' film from 2024. The flight took place in the spaces of the Azgur Museum, the most prominent Belarusian Soviet socialist realist sculptor, who created monuments to revolutionary leaders. The black-and-white film Flight (2024) was constructed in such a way that any associations with play disappear, and the act of carrying becomes a dramatic experience for the audience, just as it was for the people kidnapped by OMON. The entire experience has the character of a dark ritual; cell phone footage was chosen so that only the tortured faces of the participants and their convulsing bodies are visible. This traumatic effect is further amplified by deep, painful, labored breathing and a kind of mournful music. After walking around the courtyard, people are carried into the museum's main hall, where in the center stands a large white pedestal, which takes the form of an altar surrounded by white monumental figures of communist ideologists, leaders, and heroes by Azgur. In my imagination, they are being carried as sacrifices to these "gods" of Soviet totalitarianism, who have not disappeared at all, are not part of the past, but rule and murder again in the territories of the former Soviet empire. The ghosts of totalitarianism have been reborn.

This film vividly demonstrates how the geographical and political context gives this performance a completely different character and meaning. What in Poland, or anywhere west of Belarus's borders, might be perceived as entertainment or a group exercise, in the country of its origins, has the character of a dangerous, subversive act. Therefore, this performance could not be performed on Belarusian streets, for the safety of the participants, as it would be perceived as openly politically opposed. That's why the first Belarusian edition took place in the wilderness near the border forest, and the second in a safe museum space. However, this safety has now been lost...

Paweł Leszkowicz

© BERGAMOT GROUP, 2021, FLIGHT, action, Museum-Studio of Zaire Azgur, Minsk, Belarus