Introduction In 2016, due to the Belarusian political reality of increasing terror within Lukashenko’s dictatorship, the artist had to leave her homeland and immigrate to Latvia. In 2021, she was the finalist of the National Contest for the Venice Biennale: her nomination to represent the country and create the pavilion was taken away due to her political views. In April 2022, after the beginning of the war in Ukraine and after visiting the opening of the Venice Biennale, the artist made the decision to denounce her Belarusian citizenship. At that time, going through the process of preparing documents for the Belarusian Consulate, she experienced the physicality of the renunciation. In late October 2022, the process of citizenship refusal was finalised. Every single person who decides to denounce the citizenship of Belarus, has to get personal approval from Lukashenko, the President of Belarus. The renunciation is made by a special presidential decree. In November 2022, the artist had to deliver her passport to the Consulate, and after that process was finished. She made the decision to finally shape this auto-exile, a painful separation from my Motherland, into the Anatomy of Citizenship piece.
For the performance the artist invited people living under the status of political and economical migrants to grant their passports. During the performance the collected passports were torn apart and preserved in jars filled with formaldehyde. The idea was to showcase the physicality of the passports, displaying them ripped in pieces – the same way a human body is deconstructed and exhibited in anatomic theatres and museums. The question that the artist addresses is the following: why are our opportunities in life, our access to education, freedom and travel so much defined by something which is, in the end, just plastic and paper?
