Art Exhibition In The Oldest European Forest

The art camp welcomed everyone who wanted to create for the benefit of nature as a volunteer, an artist, a researcher or an activist. The participants arranged an eco-trail, discussed environmental art and art activism and created land art objects for the exhibition.

Maria Gulina, art manager of the project, said: Bahna already has experience in conducting similar contemporary visual art exhibitions in the wild. The organisation has been working with the territory of the national park for a long time; the protection and sustainable management of wild areas is the main focus. Eco-art is one of the best ways to introduce people to the wild nature and teach them to appreciate it and feel responsible for its protection.

The project used participatory socially engaged practices to work with both the visitors and local people. Diverse artistic practices allowed to create meaningful relationships with the unique natural environment, resulting in visual art objects immersed in the forest.

Belovezhskaya Pushcha itself is a very significant territory for the whole world and our country. This is a place of wild nature. KONTAKT exhibition allowed its visitors to reconsider art as a new sensitivity, to find themselves in a new environment, where they, as pioneers, had to come into contact and create everything anew. It challented them to reconsider their boundaries, expand their capabilities and move on. This is a new format that has never happened in this place before.

The KONTAKT project is organised in collaboration with Dekabristen e.V. (Berlin), EcoVisio (Moldova), Ukrainian Volunteer Service (Ukraine), Earth Time (Belarus), Bahna (Belarus) with the support of the German Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Text: Volha Kaskevich, Bahna’s Culture Editor