Belarusian Design: A Battle with Stereotypes – Alla Pigalskaya

Design in Belarus is a very curious phenomenon. In order to characterize this situation, perhaps it is best to start with an old joke:  ‘There is an old story about a worker suspected of stealing. Every evening as he leaves the factory, the wheelbarrow that he rolls in front of him is carefully inspected.  The guards can find nothing.  It is always empty.  Finally, the penny drops: what the worker is stealing is the wheelbarrows themselves.’ (Slavoj Zizek, Violence: Six Sideways Reflections, Picador, 2008, p. 1)
This anecdote is symptomatic of the way in which the objects usually presented at design exhibitions (Design-Format or Design-Exchange), products of folk crafts or exclusive objects for luxury interiors, can scarcely be qualified as design. At the same time, however, those who really shape the visual environment of the Belarusian population, those who produce the design products which on a mass scale are emitted and consumed by Belarusians, are never shown at exhibitions, festivals or competitions of design. For example, the authors of the most widely distributed Za Belarus (For Belarus) projects remain anonymous for the wider public and never figure in design competition programmes. Using Michel de Certeau’s concepts of strategies and tactics, an attempt will be made in this lecture to analyze the situation of the unwillingness of the Belarusian design community to accept mass-produced and consumed products.

Alla Pigalskaya – head of the BA Programme in Media and Visual Design at the European Humanities University, where she oversees and lectures in an innovative design programme. Author of an extensive number of articles on visual culture, gender studies and design, and creator of a wide range of design projects for books, calendars and multi-media projects; her Ph.D. explores the history of the museum. 

multimedia room
entrance from Burschego Street
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