As Belarus’s artists navigate repression and isolation, their work becomes a testament to what is possible in the spaces between visibility and invisibility, memory and erasure. The White Room, in all its paradoxes, is not just a design aesthetic or political metaphor—it is a call to engage with the present in the absence of a future.
The TXT file linked to the White Room project acts as a digital ledger of this exchange. By making the documentation accessible online, the artists create a counter-narrative to state curation of history. The file, written in plain text, is deceptively simple: it includes sketches, timestamps, and anonymous visitor messages. Yet it serves as a form of digital resistance, archiving what cannot be preserved in the physical world. In a country where protests are quelled and museums are state tools, the White Room—and its digital twin—offer a model of art as both a physical and conceptual act of defiance. For FIELDCOLLECTIVE, Studio Katya, and their collaborators, the act of making is inseparable from the act of transmitting . The TXT link is not an afterthought; it is the continuation of the work. filedot to belarus studio katya white room txt link
In 2023, FIELDCOLLECTIVE and Studio Katya co-created White Room (Erased) , a collaborative exhibition held in Gomel, Belarus, and simultaneously archived in a digital TXT file hosted at fieldot.white.room.txt . The installation featured a 10-meter-long wall of unmarked white panels, each representing a month since the 2020 protests in Belarus. Visitors could etch messages into the walls using light tools, only for the texts to be erased weekly—a ritual of forgetting that mirrored the state’s censorship. The TXT file, meanwhile, documented the project’s evolution, preserving what could not be held physically. By making the documentation accessible online, the artists
Potential themes: The interplay between digital and physical art, cross-border cultural projects amidst political tensions, minimalist design as a form of resistance or expression. Also, the White Room as a metaphor for Belarus's position between East and West, a space for dialogue. In a country where protests are quelled and
First, I need to research FIELDCOLLECTIVE. From what I know, it's a Russian art collective known for their collaborative projects and exploring post-Soviet identity. They've exhibited internationally, including in Moscow and Berlin. Their work often uses installation art and participatory methods.