Piotr Wójcik & Iryna Arakhouskaya

To be able to fall asleep peacefully

More than a million of Belarus’s citizens live abroad- approximately 10 percent of the country’s population. A significant amount of them left their mother country in recent years. The first mass migration out of Belarus occurred in 2020, after the rigged presidential elections. Alexander Lukashenko used repression tactics unprecedented in Belarus's contemporary history against his political opponents. The second exodus took place after February 24th, 2022, when the Russian Federation, with the support of the Lukashenko regime, launched an armed full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Together with journalist Iryna Arakhauskaya, a Belarusian political refugee, I decided to portray her compatriots who, like her, are trying to make a life for themselves in Poland. My collaboration with Iryna gives credibility to this project. It also adds a certain tension due to the differences in our experiences. The protagonists of the exhibition are people of varying ages and social status. The common experiences that link them include pro-democratic activism in Belarus, their escape from persecution in their homeland, and their current stages of adjustment to their new realities. However, each of the protagonists has a different story, a different present, and a different hope for the future. The exhibition’s form, made up of a combination of reporter's photographs and the written stories of the protagonists, plays a documentary role. It serves as a record of a significant moment to a large group of emigrants in Poland from Belarus, but also from other countries ruled by totalitarian regimes. Migration experiences are also a key element of Polish identity. They are particularly relevant now since Poland has become home to thousands of people fleeing Russian aggression in Ukraine, Lukashenko's regime in Belarus and other wars, oppressive political systems, and poverty.

Piotr Wójcik

Piotr Wójcik

From 1989 to 2011 he worked as a photojournalist and head of the photography department at Gazeta Wyborcza. In 2011 he became an academic lecturer. He lectured at the Film School in Łódź and currently works at the Faculty of Documentary Studies at the University of Warsaw. Together with Dominique Roynette, he created the Picture Doc Foundation, where he has been creating and promoting documentary projects for 10 years. Author of books and exhibitions on social problems in Poland and the Roma community in Europe.

Exhibition Availability

BOK, Forum Gallery; 5 Legionowa St.; open 27.09-15.10.2024; daily from 14:00-21:00; admission free.