Igor Shugaleev

In the midst of a global pandemic, hundreds of thousands of Belarusians went on the streets to demonstrate against the unlawful re­election of Alexander Lukashenko, president of Belarus since 1994. The demonstrations were brutally crushed by the government. Numerous people were arrest­ed, interrogated and tortured. Many of them can no longer be reached on the phone; if called, one only hears a beep and the sentence: «The person you are calling is currently not available.» Concern about their whereabouts remains inextricably con­nected with this beep to this day.

The activist performance «375 0908 2334» by the exiled Belarusian artist Igor Shugaleev al­ludes exactly to that. Accompanied by live video projections and a loudly ticking clock, Shugaleev exposes himself to a method of torture the protest­ers in his country are threatened with. Kneeling in front of a wall, his hands behind his back, his head inclined downwards, he attempts the impossible: To give a face to the tortured people – most of whom have become just a number or some pixels in the media – and to bring them closer to us. «375 0908 2334» is an upsetting work, with which Shugaleev wants to confront and affect the viewer, as well as being a call for solidarity. (af)