Maxim Sarychau
Bereich: Fotografie, Bildende Kunst
Key Facts
Nationalität
BelarusBereich
Fotografie, Bildende KunstWohnort
MinskEmpfehlende Institution
BMEIAZeitraum
März 2020 - März 2020Maxim Sarychau (b. 1987) is a photojournalist and visual artist, lives and works in Minsk, Belarus.
He works on long-term visual projects where he refers to the topics of violence of various forms and grades, both from authoritarian authorities or within traditional society. He focuses on the political and human dimensions of collective memory and history. Maxim is a co-founder of SHKLO - online platform about Belarusian photography and visual arts.
PERSONAL EXHIBITIONS
2020 – Solo exhibition "I can hardly hear birds" / Latvian Museum of Photography, Riga, Latvia (upcoming)
2018 – Solo exhibition "Blind Spot" / 11.2018 / Kasarna Karlin (Prague, Czech Republic)
2017 – Solo exhibition "Blind spot" / CECH art space (Minsk, Belarus)
2017 – Solo exhibition "Stolen Days" / Museum of Genocide Victims (Vilnius, Lithuania)
2013 – "Warsaw Photo Days" international photo festival (Poland)
2012 – Site-specific exhibition in a sleeping district (Belarus)
GROUP EXHIBITIONS AND SCREENINGS
2019
– Stallbergs Gruva art-space / 07.2019 / Stallberg, Sweden
– ImageSingulières (IS) photofestival / 29.05.2019 - 16.06.2019 / "Blind Spot" / Sète, France
– Riga Photomonth photofestival / 15.05.2019 / "Blind Spot" / Riga, Latvia
2018
– Photographic Nights of Pierrevert / 25.07.2018 - 29.07.2018 / "Blind Spot" / Pierrevert, France (upcoming)
– Odesa Photo Days International Festival / 25.04.2018 - 29.04.2018 / "Blind Spot" / Odessa, Ukraine (upcoming)
– Group exhibition "Independence Day" (was censored by local authorities and withdrawn) / 11.01.2018 - 28.01.2018 / Art Museum of Chóngqìng, China
– Group exhibition "Sites of Memory" / 8.12.2017 - 3.02.2018 / pavlov's dog gallery, Berlin, Germany
2017
– Group exhibition "One Can Not Be Too Careful" / 5.10.2017 - 26.10.2017 / CECH gallery, Minsk, Belarus
– Tbilisi Photo Festival, Night Of Photography / 16.09 / "Blind Spot" / Tbilisi, Georgia
– Space of Diffusion / 17.06 - 08.07.2017 / "Stolen Days" / Contemporary Art Space, Batumi, Georgia
– "PRAFOTA 2017" award group exhibition / 08.06 - 30.06.2017 / CECH, Minsk, Belarus
– Space of Diffusion / 17.05 - 16.06.2017 / "Stolen Days" / Tbilisi History Museum, Tbilisi, Georgia
– Compilation: Angst / 23.06 - 25.06.2017 / "Blind Spot" / Kreativraum im Körnerpark, Berlin, Germany
– Baltic Bienalle of photography / 25.05 - 25.06.2017 / "Blind Spot" / Kaliningrad, Russia
– Kolga photo festival / 07.05 - 31.05.2017 / "404: Not Found" / Tbilisi, Georgia
– "Cinema Perpetuum Mobile" Film Festival / "Lunch" video / Minsk, Belarus
– Vilnius Photo Circle photo festival / 24.02.2017 - 25.02.2017 / "404: Not Found" open air exhibition (Lithuania)
2016
– "Fortress Europe. East Bastion" group exhibition / 08.12 - 22.12 / Space KX, Brest, Belarus
– "Talks about politics. Critical art in Belarus in 10-x" group exhibition / 14.10 - 30.10 / DK "Delai Sam", Moscow, Russia
– "Acquired Reflex" project by LЁD Collective / 09.09 - 09.10 / Month Of Photography in Minsk photofestival (Belarus)
– "Belarusian Photography - PRAFOTA" group exhibition / 29.07 - 09.10 / Gallery of Classic Photography, Moscow, Russia
– Photofestival of Young Russian Photographers, "PRAFOTA" exhibition (Russia)
– "3rd Documentary Photography Days" photofestival, "A hello to arms!" screening (Turkey)
– "Salon d'Automne" art-fair / 06.10 - 30.10 / Palace of Art, Minsk, Belarus
– "Watch the news!" project with Alexey Naumchik / 20.11 - 21.11 / Y Gallery, Minsk, Belarus
– "Prafota" award group exhibition (CECH, Belarus)
2015
– "RULET 3" international multimedia screening (~30 cities)
– "Closer than close" group exhibition (CECH, Belarus)
– "Transition" international group exhibition (Y-gallery, Belarus)
2014
– "Prafota" award group exhibition (CECH, Belarus)
– "Photovisa" international photo contest, multimedia screening (Russia)
– "Vilnius Photo Circle" international photo festival (Lithuania)
2013
– "Vilnius Photo Circle" international photo festival, open air exhibition (Lithuania)
– "Food Not Bombs" multimedia screening at film festivals (Vilnius, Warsaw, Moscow, Krsko, Poznan)
2011
– Travelling group-exhibition "Human Rights and Civil Society in Belarus" (Berlin, Prague, Dresden, Zurich)
SELECTED AWARDS
2018 – "Belarus in Focus 2017" international journalism competition (Belarus)
2018 – "MFM Buro" award: Photographer of the Year (2nd place), Exhibition of the Year (3rd place) (Belarus)
2017 – "PRAFOTA" award, finalist (Belarus)
2017 – "Baltic Biennale of Photography", Grand-Prix at Free category (Russia)
2017 – "Kolga Photo Festival", finalist (Georgia)
2016 – "Vilnius Photo Circle", international photo festival, finalist (Lithuania)
2016 – "Cinema Perpetuum Mobile" International Short Film Festival, best belarusian film (Belarus)
2015 – "PRAFOTA" award, Grand-Prix at ART category (Belarus)
2015 – "Piter Foto Fest" photo festival, 1st place in "Multimedia" category (Russia)
2015 – "Belarus Press Photo" contest, Grand-Prix (Belarus)
2014 – " PRAFOTA " award, finalist with 3 projects in Documentary category (Belarus)
2014 – "PhotoVisa" international photo contest, 2nd place in Multimedia category (Russia)
2014 – "Vilnius Photo Circle", international photo festival, finalist in section for young photographers (Lithuania)
2014 – "Belarus Press Photo" contest, 1st prizes in 3 categories (Belarus)
2013 – "toKino" film festival, 1st prize, section "The Right to Speak" (Lithuania)
2012 – "Golden Camera" international photo awards, diploma in "Conceptual photography" category (Ukraine)
I plan to continue to work on my long-term project “I can almost hear birds”. The project is visual research that is focused on the history of the largest Nazi death camp in the former USSR – Maly Trostenec, which was located near Minsk, Belarus.
During the period of two months being in Vienna I plan to continue to photograph places where victims lived before their deportation to Minsk as well as key locations related to the deportation. I would like to work with visual documents from DÖW archives (Documentation Centre of Austrian Resistance). Also some unexpected ideas will arise from my stay and immersion in the topic and exploring Vienna in context of Holocaust.
Also for 2020, two exhibitions of the project are planned - in Riga (Latvia) and in Belarus. I would like to work on the upcoming Belarusian exhibition - on a selection of photos, their exposition and mixing with archive documents.
Where have all the flowers gone?
“From the Netherlands to Kenya to the United States, millions of cut flowers grown for sale are trashed due to the fall in demand for flowers during the global lockdown in the spring of 2020.” That’s only one of the many pieces of news regarding the coronavirus that prevail in all media outlets. The media flow speed goes off-scale. The infected cases statistics are updated almost in real-time, but it only causes anxiety and fear.
We can witness the death of beautiful flowers, but we don’t see pictures of people who fell victims of the virus in the news. The right to privacy and control over the dissemination of personal information prevents us from seeing other people’s suffering. This pain is invisible to us. Personal tragedies are left alone, isolated and, because of the virus threat, distant even from family and friends. By symbolically capturing the withering of nature, I’d like to invite us all to think about the people hidden behind the dry statistics of health ministries.
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The sequence of the photos in this series corresponds to the newspaper publication dates, starting from March 19 and ending on May 9, 2020 - average period of quarantine in Europe. Titles and texts of the papers reflect the main stages of the pandemic development in three languages – English, German, and French. The flowers were photographed in vases, glasses, bottles, and other containers that can be found at home and the nearest grocery store.
Each photo corresponds to the number of COVID-19 deaths and cases. Data is provided by the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control.
Maxim Sarychau / 2020