Exhibition Dedicated To Health Workers In Belarus Closes After Its Organisers Arrested

“We are very sor­ry, but we have to stop the pro­gram of the project ‘A machine is breath­ing, but I can’t’. We deeply val­ue the com­mu­ni­ty that has formed around the project, and we are sin­cere­ly grate­ful for your inter­est and sup­port,” the authors of the project wrote on Insta­gram.

Recall that on 5 April, secu­ri­ty forces searched the hous­es of the exhi­bi­tion organ­is­ers Natalia Tren­i­na and Tatyana Gat­sura-Yavorskaya; their equip­ment was con­fis­cat­ed. The activists were detained and tak­en to a tem­po­rary deten­tion cen­tre on Okrestin Street in Min­sk.

The expo­si­tion “A machine is breath­ing, I can’t” was pre­sent­ed on 30 March, but on 1 April the san­i­tary sta­tion and the Min­istry of Emer­gency Sit­u­a­tions alleged­ly found vio­la­tions at the site. Then the exhi­bi­tion was moved online, the orga­niz­ers man­aged to hold two events.

The exhi­bi­tion “A machine is breath­ing, I can’t” was ded­i­cat­ed to Belaru­sian health­care work­ers and the chal­lenges they faced over the past year: the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic and the politi­ciza­tion of the health­care sys­tem. The authors of the works pre­sent­ed at the exhi­bi­tion are famous pho­tog­ra­phers and artists. The cura­tors of the project are the SHKLO + plat­form, the orga­niz­ers are the pub­lic asso­ci­a­tion “Zveno”.