Artist and Mentor Fired as His Art Project Called “Politically-Laden”

Mikhail Hulin, a mentor of Faculty of Architecture in Belarusian National Technical University, was fired from the job after he was detained for implementation of his project on Minsk streets.

Formally, Gulin said in Facebook, he had to to write an application for freewill termination of employment.

Such a dialogue appeared on Mikhail Hulin’s Facebook page. Currently it is unavailable to reach the artist for a comment.

Mikhail Hulin together with three volunteers were held when he was implementing his art project “Private Monument.”

The artist and volunteers were carrying a yellow rectangle and three pink-coloured cubes, organised them into different figures and installed in different locations in Minsk.

However, when the artist reached the Kastrychnickaya Square, the central square of Minsk, they were captured by the police.

The artist and the volunteers were brutally treated at the police station. A policeman called a volunteer with black skin “Zimbabwe” because “his face was black.” However, the policeman used far ruder word for “face.” Two volunteers were beaten.

However, Mikhail Hulin says his project is not anyhow politically laden and devoted to the issues of expression in public places.

The project “Private Monument” was arranged within the project “Going Public” supported by the Goethe Institute.

The artist told Belarusian ezine 34mag that he already realised his projects in Kaliningrad and Klaipeda. The representatives of the Goethe Institute, “Going Public” main partner, were present during the project implementations.

However, in Minsk it turned to be vice versa. The Goethe institute denied to support the project in Belarus. The director of the Goethe Institute in Belarus in his letter told that the Goethe Institute really supported Mikhail Hulin’s project, but did not supported the installation on the Kastrychnickaja Square as “the Goethe Institute does not set supporting such actions its goal.”

The artist and volunteers will be tried on October 22 and 26. They are charged with petty hooliganism and resistance to the police.