Declared fiction holds an epistemological privilege: it is not forced to deny its own nature.^[1]  At a time when populist movements and authoritarian tendencies threaten the foundations of democracy, and with dissenting voices increasingly silenced on a global scale, the importance of language – understood in its broadest sense – becomes evident. Language emerges as a crucial tool for challenging dominant narratives and fostering dialogue.

Ulyana Nevzorova is a visual artist and activist, born in Minsk in 2001, who has been living and working in Hamburg, Germany, since 2021. Her artistic practice is grounded in a reflection on memory as a shared space, where individual experience intertwines with collective traumas and narratives. Through a range of media, Nevzorova explores the fragility of memory, its distortion over time, and the possibility of emotionally transmitting history. 

Nel 2020, la Bielorussia è stata attraversata da un’ondata di proteste senza precedenti, scaturite dalla controversa rielezione di Aleksandr Lukashenko per il settimo mandato consecutivo e dalla violenta repressione messa in atto dal suo regime. Questo momento, pur non rovesciando il governo, ha rappresentato una svolta storica: l’emergere di un nuovo soggetto democratico collettivo, capace di ridefinire il senso di comunità e resistenza in quel contesto.

Paperwork, Nevzorova’s first solo exhibition, stems from her ongoing reflection on memory and democracy and takes inspiration from the essay Solidarity of the Shaken. On the Collective Subject of the Belarusian Revolution of 2020 by Belarusian philosopher and researcher Tatyana Shchyttsova. The text examines the genesis of the protest movement that followed the presidential elections of August 9, 2020, highlighting the collective dimension of political subjectivity. The concept of “solidarity of the shaken” – introduced by philosopher Jan Patočka – describes a form of unity grounded in shared vulnerability, capable of generating new forms of political action. In recent years, thousands of Belarusians have been forced into exile.

The title of the exhibition originates from a reflection on a gesture: during the 2020 elections, the opposition devised an approximate method for counting votes not in favor of the regime. This involved folding ballots in an “accordion” shape – a gesture that allowed the modified paper to remain visually identifiable even after being cast into the ballot box.

In the video 100 Days of Protest, Nevzorova uses song and rhythm as tools of liberation, evoking an emotional dimension within this new collective body. The footage fragments that compose the video stem from her everyday life in 2020: memories of demonstrations, gatherings, and moments of communal experience. The artist distills from these events a memory of the present, charged with emotional tension and conflict.

Nevzorova’s intervention builds upon Margherita Moscardini’s work created for Platea exhibition space: the ladder-sculpture will remain on site, serving as a structural and conceptual anchor for the contributions of the artists involved in Nine out of ten movie stars make me cry, opening space for a layered interpretation of the entire annual program.