Belarus Free Theatre brings totalitarian terror to Venice Biennale with immersive installation

Belarus Free Theatre (BFT), an exiled dissident troupe, presents 'Official. Unofficial. Belarus.' at the Venice Biennale, its first major art project without performance elements. The installation features a giant ball of banned books (including Harry Potter and works by Nobel laureate Svetlana Alexievich) on a bulldozer claw, surveillance cameras on an iron crucifix, and wheat stems cut to 90cm lengths. Created by painters, sculptors, composers, and a recently released political prisoner, the work evokes the sights, sounds, smells, and tastes of brutal repression under Europe's last dictatorship. BFT members have faced imprisonment, torture, and surveillance. The project is being assembled in a Warsaw studio before shipment to Venice.