This year we organized our very first literary festival dedicated to Belarusian women writers — and we think it turned out to be a really special event. When we started planning it, we had one simple idea: what if a literary festival was designed primarily for readers? Very often literary festivals follow a familiar pattern. You come, you listen to writers reading from their books, maybe you buy a book, and then you leave.

We are glad to invite you to our new exhibition. This time, we turned to vernacular photography — and more specifically, to women within it. The exhibition brings together photographs of women from different collections we work with, creating a space where these images can be seen together, in conversation with one another. We didn’t settle on a single title for this exhibition — and that is intentional. Depending on how you choose to look at it, this exhibition becomes a slightly different thing each time.

While the internet is flooded with images from 2016, the Ivan Lutskevich Belarusian Museum in Vilnius invites visitors to a new exhibition titled “1926: An Exhibition About the Future.” The exhibition features Belarusian books published in 1926, love letters written that year by students of the Vilnius Belarusian Gymnasium, and postcards by Belarusian poets. “1926 may not seem particularly remarkable at first glance,” admit the museum’s curators. “Yes, in Minsk the leading linguists of the time were gathering for a legendary conference, the Soviet authorities were investing in new printing typefaces, and from that year onward Belarusian books published in Vilnius and Minsk would never again follow a single shared visual style.

THREADS: From Hands to Memory What stays with us when we leave home? Why is women’s handwork once again becoming a language of remembrance? And how can tradition live today — not only in museums, but in contemporary life? “Threads: From Hands to Memory” is an exhibition about intergenerational connection, women’s experience, and Belarusian culture that continues through hands, fabric, ornament, and stories. In the exhibition: 🧵 traditional and reconstructed Belarusian folk costumes 🧵 hand and machine embroidery as a living, evolving tradition 🧵 dolls dressed in regional costumes 🧵 a collective installation made of women’s stories and textile fragments 🧵 contemporary interpretations of ornament as a language of memory and belonging

Dear friends, We invite you to visit Bits and Pieces, an exhibition of paintings by Marco Antonio Lillo. The opening will take place on October 30th at 18:30. It’s fair to say that Marco Antonio Lillo has lived several lives. His teaching career has taken him to many corners of the world, before he finally found a sense of home with his family in Belarus. His artistic journey is just as diverse — never confined to a single style.

Can you believe it has been 4 years? It sure was a rollercoaster to exist in the world since 2021, especially when you get to witness all the stories that our community and friends bring. But it is also an opportunity to take a step back and think what we were able to make with the beautiful building we have, with all the incredible support we get, and the beautiful humans we’ve met.

What We Want You to Understand About Belarusian Women Diaspora Activists We have been doing Belarusian women diaspora activism for years. Some of us for decades. Recently, we also began to study it more systematically. Can we share a few things we’ve learned? Activism in diaspora is absolutely essential. In our home countries, we often outsource identity to institutions. Schools teach history and literature. Museums present heritage. Public holidays, cultural events, and state-funded initiatives help maintain a shared sense of who we are.

We are launching a new mentorship program for Belarusian women activists — and we are very excited about it. The program will bring together 25 women who want to strengthen their projects or learn how to create new initiatives from scratch. Our goal is simple: to give participants practical tools, community support, and space to grow their ideas. Belarusian women today carry a huge amount of responsibility, and many of them are deeply burned out.

Hi! In case you’ve been wondering what we were busy with in 2024 - we prepared a neat little list for you. Would you like to see yourself in such a list for 2025? Write us a letter at hello@vilnia.com on how you would like to join - we welcome all kinds of projects that benefit local communities. And so, on to the thing… THE 2024 REPORT Exhibitions Christmas exhibition on what and how Belarusians celebrated in Vilnius in winter over the past hundred years “The Waiting for Christmas Remains” A memorial photo exhibition by photographer Uladzimir Parfianok in Vilnius A one-day graphic exhibition by Uladzimir Rakitski “Leonardo Profano” An exhibition of book graphics by illustrator Kaciaryna Dubovik An exhibition about Chornobyl from photos of 90s protests and children’s drawings “The Zone” An exhibition of early graphics by Aleh Ablažej An exhibition of white paper about archives and heritage “Hefker” An art exhibition of Belarusian women-political prisoners, “Prison from the Outside, Not from the Inside” (from the Belarusian Museum in Warsaw) An ethnographic photography exhibition “Gender Aspect of the Old Believer Culture of Northern Belarus” An exhibition documenting the Holocaust in Belarus “Places and Memory”.

Vilnius Belarusian I. Lutskevich Museum opened a new exhibition, presenting empty paper from 1910s to 2010s from the museum’s archives. The paper presents the unseen pages, literally,of the Vilnius Belarusian activists, folklorists, writers, artists and a newspaper, as well as some exhibits from the collective farms of former North-West Belarusian SSR collective farms. Curatorial team - Paulina Vitushchanka (concept and texts), Ilia Magin (montage, design,layout, title) and Andrei Antonau (material commentary, descriptions) invite to visit the exhibition during the autumn months, and also to enjoy the catalogue of the exhibitionon museum’s archive.