LESIA PCHOLKA
is a Belarusian research-based artist. Lives and works in Berlin/DE and Bielsk Podlaski/PL
Founder and curator of the VEHA archive. Part of swamp.center independent self-publishing platform.
(1) research-based artist
(2) curator
(3) cv _ _ contact
Pcholka’s artistic practice combines archival methods, social engagement, collective memory and historical continuity to explore how the past influences contemporary life in Belarus and beyond. Through photography, video, and installation, she examines the contrast between official narratives and undocumented histories, giving a voice to those who have been silenced. She situates Belarus within a broader comparative framework, drawing parallels with other authoritarian contexts while also examining spaces of resistance. Exile sharpens her attention to displacement, belonging, and fragile memory, while gender perspectives inform her sensitivity to embodied experience and power. By mobilizing community archives and experimental storytelling approaches, Pcholka creates layered narratives that move between personal and political, private and collective, reimagining how histories can be remembered and resisted.
Although trained in academic painting at an art school and holding a degree in Social Psychology from Minsk Innovation University, she developed her artistic language largely outside of institutional frameworks, through self-organised initiatives and long-term collaborations with communities and informal archives. She is an alumna of the ArtPlatform programme (2018–19), Sputnik Photos Mentoring Programme (2020), and has completed several professional programmes, including Biz4all (ODB Brussels & TNU Network University, 2016–17), the East-European School of Political Studies (2020–21), Family's Heritage: How to Understand and Preserve It at European Humanities University (2025), and the John Smith Trust's 'Belarus Leaders in Exile' programme (2025).
In 2017, she founded the VEHA archive, a platform dedicated to collecting, preserving, and interpreting vernacular photography as a key source for understanding everyday life and visual culture in Belarus. Through archival research, publications, and exhibitions, the archive is developing new ways of working with family photographs and community-based visual heritage.
From 2018 to 2020, she was a member of the Belarusian Association of Photographers.
In 2020-2021, she lectured the course Visual History of Everyday Life within the Public History concentration at the ECLAB (European College of Liberal Arts in Belarus). From 2021 to 2024, she was a mentor on the Social Camp educational project. She regularly gives lectures, workshops, and talks on archives, memory politics, and visual research at universities and cultural institutions, including Humboldt University (Berlin), Bard College (USA), Fundacja Archeologia Fotografii (PL) and others.
She is a co-founder of the Mochnarte Foundation in Poland and served as its Programme Director from 2023–24.
Her work has been presented internationally at institutions and festivals, including Belvedere 21 (Vienna, AT), KVOST (Berlin, DE), Gallery (Bialystok, PL), Museum of Emigration (Gdynia, PL) Circulations Festival (Paris, FR), IPMA Festival (Kaunas, LT) and Copenhagen Photo Festival. It was also exhibited during the 60th Venice Biennale as part of The Other Session. She is the author of several photobooks, including Descent into the Marsh (2024), which was shortlisted for the Henri Cartier-Bresson Self-Published Photobook Award in 2026. Her work is held in the collections of the Günter Grass Gallery (Gdańsk), IoDeposito Gallery (Italy).
Her projects and photographs have been published in international media, including the BBC, Magnum Photos _ Magnum Flow, Phmuseum _ Featured Photobooks, ARTMARGINS, NN6T #164, NEWEAST, ICORN, Variant Magazine, The Calvert Journal, DEKODER / DEKODER, GUP Magazine, Sekktor.online, Post MoMA _ NY, BLOK, IoDeposito B#S, RTV Magazin, SZUM, CISR e.V. platform, KubaParis and Contemporary Art Library. In printed matter in EIKON #123, FROM THE FOLDINGS #0, Art & Politics by Offing Press; Hjärnstorm magazine #156, Tygodnik Powszechny, FAZ, pARTisanka magazine #34, as well as in the following books: NO.10 Sputnik Photos Mentoring Programme (2021); photos for Machinery of Dissent, by Alesia Rudnik (2025); illustrations for Antologia. Literatura na uchodźstwie, by the Willa Decjusza Institute (2025); A-P-P #5. The Strike Newspaper #5. Archiwum Protestów Publicznych.
She was competitively selected to participate in a number of prestigious international artist residencies and fellowship programs, including Gaude Polonia, Narodowe Centrum Kultury (2025, 2019), Weltoffenes Berlin, Berlin Senate Department for Culture (2024), Memory Work, Bundesstiftung Aufarbeitung (2023), ICORN. International Cities of Refuge Network (2021-22) as well as residencies at IASPIS. The International Artists Studio Program (Stockholm, 2023); MuseumsQuartier Q21 (Vienna, 2022); Brno AIR. House of Arts (Brno, 2021); and Galeria Arsenal AIR (Bialystok, 2021).
HALF-LIFE: 40 YEARS
AFTER CHARNOBYL — THE BELARUSIAN FALLOUT
24. 04 – 15. 05. 2026 Gallery UQ-BAR-A-BA / Berlin, DE