NADYA SAYAPINA
about / cv
projects
performances
immersive spaces
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nadyasayapina.art@gmail.com
photo by Tina Zaborowska
Nadya Sayapina (b.1989, Belarus) is an interdisciplinary artist working with socially engaged and community-based practices. She explores collective memory, displacement, and trauma, and the quiet strategies of survival and resistance that persist within them.
Sayapina works with installation, multimedia, performance, objects, and drawing. Her practice is based on long-term research, including interviews, archival work, and shared creative processes. She works as a mediator, giving form to voices and experiences that remain unrecorded or historically overlooked. She draws on vernacular traditions, working with meanings embedded in materials, objects, and ritual gestures.
Living in exile since 2020 due to political persecution in Belarus, she continues to work internationally. Her works have been shown at Mystetskyi Arsenal Kyiv, Neues Museum Nürnberg, Warsaw Gallery Weekend, Manifesta 14, ZKM Karlsruhe. She has been a fellow of the Goethe Institute, Martin Roth Initiative, CEC Artslink, and a guest lecturer at HFBK University of Fine Arts Hamburg. She is currently based in Warsaw, Poland.
Education:
2012 – MA in Art Studies, National Academy Of Sciences Of Belarus / Minsk
2011 – BA in Arts and Crafts, Belarusian State University Of Culture And Arts/ Minsk
Solo exhibitions (selected):
2024
– Letter to mom / CO³ / Cologne, Germany
– Pokuć 2024 / Marszałkowska 18 / Warsaw // KUT / Poznań, Poland
2021
– Letter To Mom / Mystetskyi Arsenal / Kyiv, Ukraine
Group exhibitions (selected):
2026
– 5 drops that make the barrel overflow / ColaTaxiOkay, Karlsruhe
2025
– Narracje #16 – Aniołki. Pod powiekami / Gdańsk
– There is no river without sources / PAKD gallery, Berlin
– Na pamiežžach / Aula UAP, Poznań
– True/False film fest / Columbia, Missouri
2024
– Are you that body? / Warsaw Gallery Weekend, Krupa Gallery, Warsaw
– Überall und nirgendwo / Neues Museum Nürnberg
– Sound 2024 / LCB Depot, Leicester
– Testimony / Neues Museum Nürnberg
– Sometimes I Hold Onto the Air / Galerie im Körnerpark, Berlin
2023
– Women Art Revolution / RDK – Dom Kultury Śródmieście, Warsaw
– Antiwarcoalition.Art / ZKM Center for Art and Media, Karlsruhe
– Liminarium / Theaterhaus, MDJ, Stuttgart
2022
– Secondary Archive / Manifesta 14, Kosovo
– Dark Hope Respite / Pilotenkueche, Leipzig
– Letter To _____ / curating / HFBK, Hamburg
– Eclat. Echoes – Voices From Belarus / Hospitalkirche, Stuttgart
2021
– Ludwigsburg Festival / Karlskaserne, Ludwigsburg
– Every Day / Mystetskyi Arsenal, Kyiv
– Belarus Lebt! / The Pilecki Institute In Berlin
– The Body And The City / Goethe Institut Hong Kong
2020
– Art Of Resistance / Arti Et Amicitiae, Amsterdam
– Belarus.Protest.Art / 59 Rivoli, Paris
Art residences and fellowships:
2026
– Akademie Schloss Solitude fellowship, Stuttgart
– Mochnarte residency, Poland
2025
– OASis residency, Bethlen Square Theatre, Budapest
2024
– True/False AIR, Columbia, Missouri
– Free Belarus Center Fellowship, Warsaw
2023
– PerspAKTIV Residency, Stuttgart
2022
– Art Prospect Fellowship by CEC Artslink, Berlin
– Goethe Institute Fellowship, Leipzig
– Pilotenkueche Residency, Leipzig
– Open Institute by Strefa Wolnosłowa, Warsaw
2021
– Martin Roth Initiative, Kyiv
2020
– Recreation On The Border, AIR by Prastora KX, Zalessie (Belarus)
2019
– Art Prospect Intensive In Socially Engaged by CEC Artslink, Odesa, Chisinau
Performances (selected):
2026
– Do not crown us with legends, Mochnarte, Poland
2023
– Hello, Home! / Theaterhaus, Mdj, Stuttgart
2022
– Too Many Papers / Nebenan / Побач. Unabhängige Kunst aus Belarus, Hellerau, Dresden
– Letter to Mom / ECLAT, Hospitalkirche, Stuttgart
2021
– Letter to Mom / Ludwigsburger Schlossfestspiele, Karlskaserne, Ludwigsburg
2020
– The Heritage / Art-Belarus Gallery , Minsk
Publications (selected):
Berlin Art Link, ART HUB Magazine, Secondary Archive, Tranzit, MutualArt, Bosla Arts, L’Internationale, Feminist Translocalities, Lerchenfeld HFBK Journal.
Work experience:
2008–ongoing – Art Educator and Freelance Artist
2022–2023 – Set Designer / Belarus Free Theatre, Barbican, London
2021–2022 – Guest Lecturer / HFBK University of Fine Arts, Hamburg
2014–2015 – Co-founder & Art Director / DK Bar-Club-Space, Minsk
2011–2014 – Mural and Decorative Artist / Artsbel Studio, Minsk