In November 2020, Zmicer Waynowski was detained during the weekly \u201cPensioners’ march\u201d.\u00a0 He was sentenced to 13 days in prison under the infamous Article 23.34 of the Code of Administrative Offences. That was the last time he worked as a street photographer in the country\u2019s capital. After serving his sentence, he was subjected to further punishment and repressions and forced to leave the country.<\/p>\n
He now lives in Lublin, Poland.<\/p>\n
Alena Pratasevich, the curator of \u201cthe REM sleep\u201d project<\/p>\n
The 2020 presidential elections in Belarus were characterised by an unbelievable level of fraud, which led to massive street protests that lasted over six months and, in some form, continue until today.<\/p>\n
Among the protesters gathered in the streets were those driven by an unquenchable desire for change and those with an inherent fear of the unknown. This \u201ccollective body\u201d of the street\u00a0 was important for the photographer to dive into in order to find individual bodies. And what he found was that the poses, gestures and \u201cdialogues\u201d of these bodies are alarmingly \u201cacademic\u201d and repetitive but they also invite new interpretations.<\/p>\n
For this feat, I picked up a 1980s camera, loaded a black-and-white film and dived into the crowds to get as close as possible to the heart of the events.<\/p>\n
I’ve named my project “the REM sleep”.<\/p>\n
Everything that\u2019s happening in the Belarusian society feels like a paradoxical dream. It’s like the REM phase, characterised by increased brain activity. One of its symptoms is rapid eye movement. When you look at the eyes, you feel that the sleeper sees something bright and colourful and is about to wake up, having committed to memory what they\u2019ve experienced.<\/p>\n
I\u2019ve tried to capture this sense of restless sleeping with patterns of alternating fast and slow phases.<\/p>\n
I don’t know what our society dreams about, which stages of sleep repeat images and which produce something new. But I know for sure that I want to be there when those eyes open.<\/p>\n
Zmicer Waynowski, photographer<\/p>\n
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Details When: 5-15 October 2021 Where: \u0141okietka Square Free admission […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":10617,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0},"tags":[108],"mec_category":[82],"class_list":["post-10623","mec-events","type-mec-events","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-visual-arts","mec_category-panels-and-meetings"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n