State of Denial

“In Belarus, a repressive dictatorship prevails, suppressing freedom of expression. Government-controlled media conceals information about the growing number of political prisoners, the alarming rate of disappearances, and the ineffectiveness of laws and the constitution in safeguarding individual rights. The project explores the phenomenon of everyday digital life through interactions between humans and media channels. In contemporary society, saturated with countless distractions competing for our attention, it has become commonplace to avert our gaze from images that evoke discomfort. The body of work is divided into two parts. The first presents a selection of absurd and disturbing stories of detentions in Belarus. I researched these cases and created staged photographs based on them. In a dictatorial country, people are imprisoned for speaking the Belarusian language, praying, or wearing white-red-white clothing—the colors of our historical flag, now labeled as extremist. In the second part, I use news headlines published on the specific dates of these arrests. A neural network used each headline as input to generate corresponding images. Numerous irrelevant and peculiar news stories appeared on the same days as the arrests. For each case, I selected twelve headlines published on the day of the arrest to show how, in moments of crisis, propaganda produces visual and informational noise. Through this work, I aim to demonstrate how the agenda seeks to divert our attention away from crucial issues. I also explore our tendency to avoid confronting meaningful problems and instead occupy our minds with superficial entertainment content.” [Sasha Velichko]