Text of curator of the exhibition: Vera Zalutskaya

The starting point for the exhibition is the VEHA archive initiated in 2017 by Lesia Pcholka, one of the most important initiatives concerning the preservation of Belarusian visual heritage. The project involves collecting and cataloging amateur and family photographs that document various aspects of social life from the emergence of this medium in present-day Belarus. The previous themes of this collection included: family snapshots against woven carpets, wedding and funeral compositions, and images of people against the backdrop of the forest. Each of these themes was presented in a separate book accompanied by research texts. VEHA's main goal is to preserve traces of Belarusian everyday history through the collection, study, and dissemination of a visual social archive. In the context of actions by the Belarusian state and public institutions, which often intentionally or due to a lack of appropriate resources, erase or even destroy traces of local culture, the VEHA initiative can be confidently recognized as an expression of both cultural and civic activism.

Artists from Belarus, Poland, and Macau were invited to participate in the exhibition. Most of the presented works were created specifically for the occasion. Katarzyna Sienkiewicz, who belongs to the Belarusian minority, reveals the story of her own family connected with weaving (both of the painter's grandmothers were weavers) and Belarusian culture. Lesia Pcholka, the initiator and founder of the initiative, created several works that combine the themes of all the facets of the archive. They refer to the complex and often contradictory elements characteristic of Belarusian culture, which cannot be reduced to a monolithic set of national signs and symbols.

The title of the exhibition, "Let It Shine," is taken from a fragment of the poem "To Live" by Larysa Heniush (1910-1983), a Belarusian poet and political figure who lived during the time most of the photographs in the VEHA archive come from. Her understanding of life is associated with the simplest aspects: belonging to the land, forests, orchards, intergenerational ties, memory, home, and a belief in a better tomorrow. These are topics that can often be found in private family collections containing individual stories. When gathered into a larger collection like the VEHA archive, they form the history of the country. This history presents itself in its grassroots form, devoid of grand narratives, well-known names, and universally celebrated dates. This allows for a detailed capture of manifestations of the local natural and cultural environment through the presentation of the most universal elements of human life.