Yevgenia Belorusets will present a series of photographs and excerpts from unpublished literary works created in 2025–2026. The talk will explore the everyday experience of life amidst a protracted, full-scale war, the fragility of human connections, and the conceptual pitfalls that language encounters when attempting to describe catastrophe. Avoiding heroic pathos, the author addresses taboo themes of everyday wartime life — the fear of mobilisation, isolation, survivor’s shame, and speechlessness in the face of violence.
A key part of the talk will be the conceptualisation of the world of dreams and ‘anti-dates’ as a space capable of serving as a bridge between perception, reflection, and traumatic everyday life. How does the language of photography and the way reality is captured change when reality itself slips away, and everyday life turns into a nightmare from which it is impossible to wake up?
Yevgenia Belorusets is an artist and writer living and working between Kyiv and Berlin. Her work operates at the intersection of literature, visual art, and documentary practice, often drawing attention to the more vulnerable groups of Ukrainian society, including queer families, Roma communities, miners, and people living in war-affected regions. Her works have been exhibited, among other venues, in the Ukrainian Pavilion at the 56th and 59th Venice Biennale. She has received numerous awards, including the International Literature Award of the House of World Cultures (HKW) in 2020, the Schering Stiftung Special Prize for Artistic Research in 2022, and the Alice Salomon Poetics Prize in 2025.
Opening address: Professor Dr Thomas Klinger
Chair: Professor Dr Roman Dubasevych
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Organizational information
The Alfried Krupp Wissenschaftskolleg is offering this event live as a zoom meeting in which viewers can participate in writing via chat.
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Recording of the digital lecture
The digital lecture will be recorded for use in the college's media library. Only the speaker, his/her presentation and the moderator will be heard or seen in the recording. Video, audio or chat contributions are not recorded. A "REC" sign at the edge of the picture informs the participants.