New resident: Kirill Masheka

We are pleased to announce the continuation of our program. The new resident is performer, activist and actor , who will work in Poznan and Berlin from September 10 to October 10, 2023 and create an autobiographical mono-performance together with the curator of the residency, director and artist .

_{Kiryl Masheka during the Riot Days performance as part of his participation in the Pussy Riot group at the festival "Mirdita, dobar dan", Belgrade, Serbia / © photo: Romain Guédé}

Kirill about himself : “I am an artist, performer, director, playwright and civil activist from Belarus. I spent the main years of my creative activity as a member of the Belarus Free Theatre and the Pussy Riot group as an actor and human rights activist.

I spent the last two years and two months in a Moscow pre-trial detention center and returned to Belarus, where I feel a high risk of new political persecution and a threat to my safety. Currently, no socially or politically oriented artistic activity is possible in Belarus. Over the past three years, almost all non-governmental organizations have been liquidated in Belarus, non-governmental and some state media and cultural organizations have been banned and expelled from the country, the number of political prisoners continues to grow every day to this day. Most of my collegues are in exile or in prison in Belarus. A few days ago, on September 6, I managed to get a visa and I immediately left Belarus and now I'm in Berlin.

The main form of my activity: theater, performance, video art, activism. When creating a product, I focus on cooperation with interdisciplinary institutions, in collaboration with which a voluminous, multifunctional, versatile and multicultural product is born, touching on current social and political topics. Today I am concerned and interested in the phenomenon of “refuge” of a person, a state, a space, as a way of thinking about the changes taking place in the world and the events that cause cultural shifts and transformations."

The residency is organized by the platform and the space in Poznań, with the support of the foundation, the German Federal Foreign Office and the Civil Society Cooperation. We also thank , and for their help in organizing the residence.