IDEA, PERFORMANCE Igor Shugaleev
CURATOR, ASSISTANT Sergey Shabohin
VIDEO ART Aleksandra Kononchenko
PRODUCTION Marina Dashuk
DURATION 90 mins
375 0908 2334
+375: phone country code for Belarus;
09.08–12.08: four days of protests after the 2020 presidential elections in Belarus during which brutal mass arrests by the militarized enforcement, severe beatings and tortures in detention facilities took place.
23.34: article of the Administrative Code of the Republic of Belarus “Violation of the procedures for organizing or holding mass events” which affected over 30 000 Belarusians.
This combination of digits, which visually resembles a phone number, and this auto-response are a trigger of the first days post 2020 elections in Belarus.
The mobile service and internet connection was down those days, so calling friends to find out if all was well was only possible very late at night or early in the morning.
Whenever someone was out of reach, the phrase “The party you are calling is currently not available” would become full of fearsome prospects.
