Marina Naprushkina
Marina Naprushkina was born in 1981 in Minsk, Belarus, and lives in Berlin. Her diverse practice includes video, performance, drawing, installation, and text, often developed in collaboration with activist groups and communities outside institutional frameworks. In 2007 she founded the Office for Anti-Propaganda, and in 2013 co-founded Neue Nachbarschaft/Moabit, a commons space rooted in migrant self-organisation. She has exhibited at the Kyiv Biennial (2023, 2017), the 7th Berlin Biennial (2011), and the 11th Istanbul Biennial (2009). Recent shows took place, among others, at the Kunsthaus Graz (2023), the Latvian Centre for Contemporary Art (2022), EMST Athens (2022), Mystetskyi Arsenal Kyiv (2021), and the Kunsthalle Wien (2020). She received the ECF Princess Margriet Award for Culture (2017) and the Sussmann Artist Award (2015) and teaches at the Universität der Künste Berlin.
SERIES BIRDS WITH THE PEOPLE
2023
Large-format, double-sided painted canvases
The large-format, double-sided painted canvases relate in their form to the диван – dyvan, a painting format widespread in rural areas in the region of Belarus, Poland and Ukraine in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The title of the work refers to the anti-government protests in 2020 and Russia's strong intervention in Belarus since the beginning of the war in Ukraine. "Birds with the people" is a slogan published on social media by one of the oldest environmental organizations in Belarus, Ахова птушак Бацькаўшчыны (APB/BirdLife Belarus), calling for solidarity with the protesters. As a result, the organization, like most NGOs in Belarus in recent years, was declared extremist and closed down by the Belarusian Ministry of Justice.