In autumn 2021, the Belarusian–Polish border crossing at Bruzgi–Kuźnica attracted international attention. Thousands of migrants, primarily from Arab countries, attempted to enter the EU there. Belarusian leader Alyaksandr Lukashenko, whose re-election in 2020 was widely disputed, was accused of deliberately bringing people to the border to use them as political leverage against sanctions imposed by the European Union.

The title This is not just the street. These are the people. is taken from an open letter by the Belarusian writer Svetlana Alexievich, published in the wake of the protests and arrests following the 2020 presidential election in Belarus.

At the centre of the installation is a stage constructed from Euro pallets, with a microphone placed on it. Poems by Belarusian poets are played through the microphone, which has been converted into a loudspeaker. The stage is a replica of the makeshift structure from which Lukashenko addressed people housed in a repurposed logistics centre near the Polish border in November 2021.

A screen displays footage from a webcam operated by the Belarusian government. Originally installed for traffic surveillance, the camera broadcast the events at the border crossing live. Seven large-format images show screenshots of Google image search results for »Bruzgi« in November, arranged chronologically to trace how the crisis was visually represented online over time. Nearby, a sign resembling an EU border-crossing marker has been rotated 180 degrees, pointing to competing political narratives. The stars of the EU flag have been replaced by emojis taken from social media posts about the events in Bruzgi.

Featuring poems by: Julia Cimafiejeva, Maryja Martysievič, Uladzimir Liankievič, Dmitri Strozew, Tania Skarynkina, and Andrej Chadanowitsch

Installation views, Galerie intershop, Leipzig
Photo 7: Reading by Andrej Chadanowitsch