The video performance is part of the self-titled Pokuć project, which explores the search for Belarusian identity amidst migration, exile, and colonisation. It examines how the phenomenon has been cyclically reflected in classical, contemporary, elite, and folk cultures. Pivotal to this project is the kut (corner), a visual-semantic symbol embodying multifaceted meanings. In the belarussian tradition the rodny kut (native corner/nook) signifies the Motherland, while a pokuć is a sacred corner in a home. Corners also represent contradictions and borderlines: places of prayer and ritual, but also of punishment; places of safety, yet also of hopelessness and entrapment.

The video was created on the Belarusian–Polish border, in the Podlasie region. The metal frame of the constructed corner emphasizes the artificiality of the established boundaries: the region of Western Belarus ceded to Poland in 1921, but did not return during the unification with the Eastern territory in 1939. The history of partition became the basis for creating the famous lines “My native nook, dear land that bred me! I have no power to forget thee!” (1911-1923). Jakub Kolas, a classic of Belarusian literature, began his poem behind bars for his opposition activities and finished it detachment from his homeland.

The video performance captures a ritual in an ephemeral sacred corner. As a prayer or a spell, the artist whispers exiled Belarusian poets’ calls to their Motherland, trying to catch and fix its reflection in the mirror.

Fragments of poems by Jakub Kolas, Hanna Sieviaryniec, Larysa Hienijuš, Andrej Chadanovič, Michaś Čarot, Nasta Kudasava, Maryja Badziej

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AmcBYTIe7-c