Rethinking familiar images How to show the ins and outs of a totalitarian regime using its own symbols

An artist from Belarus Lioks talks about his work with simplicity and naturalness. He does not pretend to be an "eye opener", but an unexpected combination of objects, images and personalities completely changes their meaning.

— Lioks, scrolling through your Instagram, I was surprised how an unexpected combination of images from the past can reflect today and today's perception of what is happening. Am I describing your approach correctly?

— Everything is much more prosaic. Working with old film photos is much more pleasant than with modern digital ones. But since totalitarian regimes have not changed a bit during the existence of photography, the events that took place in those distant times completely coincide with the events taking place now.

"Imperial chauvinism and the so-called great power are always war. Russia is always at war!"

"Do the mothers of Russian soldiers really think that their sons are accomplishing some kind of feat and therefore they are silently waiting for zinc coffins?"

— Is there a unifying goal that you pursue when creating your work?

— My goal is an attempt to speak out, no matter how trite it may sound. Whether someone understands what I want to say or not is the least of my concerns. I never claimed to be an "eye opener".

— Do you share the opinion that the reasons for what is happening today lie in the past?

— I don't think there is any past, present and future. We all move in circles. Stupidity, cowardice, servility — these are the reasons for what is happening then and now.

"Peeing in your eyes is God's dew"

"Evil eats itself"

— You said before the interview that you remain anonymous. Tell me why?

— My anonymity is rather conditional. But living in a country in which they are tried for thought crime, one must still try to maintain this anonymity.

— Are you deanonymizing after the change of power?

— I don't think anyone is interested in my personality. I'm not Banksy. In addition, after the power change, lioks harotny will cease to exist.

— The artist Koin told us in his interview that in Russia any anti-war statement will entail, at a minimum, administrative and sometimes even criminal prosecution. And what about this in Belarus?

— As I have already said, in Belarus they are tried for thought crime. In 2020, a man received a "day" for the fact that, according to a witness in uniform, "mentally supported the protesters." Since the beginning of the war, many Belarusians have been imprisoned for filming or videotaping the movement of military equipment. For any anti-war statement or action a person can be punished more severely than for a real crime.

— And what part of the society in Belarus, according to your feelings, is worried about the war between Russia and Ukraine?

— Unfortunately, there are many in Belarus who support or justify the war. Bad people, unfortunately, are everywhere. But thinking people and people who are able to empathize are worried about the events in Ukraine since the Maidan.

"Will Russia be enough for all 200s?"

— One of your latest works depicts Lukashenka nibbling, if I'm not mistaken, someone's bone. I understand that the question "what did the author mean by this?" the most beaten of all beaten, but I really want to ask him :-)

— The point is that any totalitarian regime, including lukashenka's regime, is cannibalistic.

— Despite the fact that you live in Belarus, most of the images in your work are from Russia. More precisely from the USSR, but still located on the territory of Russia. Why?

— As I said, working with old photographs is much more pleasant. And I use a photo not from the USSR, Russia or somewhere else, but a photo from the totalitarian past, which is no different from the totalitarian present.

— In terms of its brevity, I really liked your work, in which a grenade is combined with a church cross. You wrote "the cult of war" in the description for it. In my opinion, this is the perfect description of modern Russia, which calls itself very Orthodox, but at the same time threatens the whole world with the use of force. How do you search for a visual solution and what events or phenomena you illustrated were the most difficult for you?

— The hardest part was making illustrations for the events of 2020 in Belarus and the war in Ukraine. These events caused me great pain.

And the search for a visual solution is very simple for me. Everything has its symbols: Orthodoxy has a cross, war has a grenade, a slave kneels, and a person who does not want to obey has scars all over his back. It's very hard not to repeat yourself. But working in one direction for a long time, this, unfortunately, is inevitable.

Interview: Roman Tomenko

Editor: Sergey Fomkin

2023