Cemra

“Cemra” means darkness. It is the name chosen by Belarusian artist Darya Siamchuk, who was born in Grodno in 1990 and has been living in exile in Warsaw since the pro-Russian government cracked down on freedom of expression and independent civil society organisations in 2022. The pain and division caused by the situation in her homeland are clearly reflected in Cemra's work. Her art deals with vulnerability, repression, trauma and solidarity, conveying the heaviness of the regime's cruelty and violence towards its critics. Nevertheless, Cemra cannot let go of her homeland. National emblems and symbols appear repeatedly in her multidisciplinary works, which can be interpreted as both patriotic codes and expressions of the resilience of an oppressed people.

Ziamliačka – Belarusian for "one who comes from the same soil" – is Cemra's latest project, performance, installation and labour of love all at once. It began with the illegal transport of 150 kg of Belarusian soil to Poland, where its scent was extracted in order to preserve the memory of an unreachable homeland in the form of an olfactory archive. Smells are powerful memory triggers because they are directly connected to the limbic system. This enables them to instantly conjure up seemingly forgotten memories. Using scent as a medium makes the project deeply personal, while also appealing to a wide audience by touching viewers on an intuitive and emotional level. The soil that Cemra presents in an installation, piled in a minimalist glass cube, is more than just matter; it is a political body that crosses borders, preserves a sense of home and refuses erasure by turning private loss into a shared archive for all exiles. At the same time, it represents the energy that Cemra lost during her years in exile, energy that must be replenished. "True power flows not only from those who stand beside you, but from the ground beneath your feet."

At the opening of her exhibition at Kunsthaus Graz, Cemra closes the circle that began with an act of activism with a poetic, melancholic performance in which she sings about her homeland.