Solidarity with Maria Kalesnikava

Monday, November 3, 2025

STUTTGART

9:00 p.m.

Theater Rampe
Rakete
Filderstrasse 47
70180 Stuttgart

Free admission

Maria Kalesnikava, founder of the Stuttgart cultural association INTERAKT, is imprisoned as a political prisoner in Belarus. The evening will be organized by her companions in Stuttgart and will include a conversation with Olga Bubich, a Belarusian essayist currently living in exile in Berlin. She will talk about common myths about Belarus that she encounters in Germany:

How much do we know and how much do we not know about our closest Eastern European neighbor? How do we imagine its history, its linguistic and political situation? To what extent do we rely on memories of the Soviet past and fragmentary media reports to form a picture of who the Belarusians are? Olga shares her experiences and impressions and presents facts and statistics from Belarus' past and present.

Olga Bubich (Belarus/Germany) is an essayist focusing on research into collective memory and Europe's traumatic past, a visual artist with two published photo books, and a lecturer with over 15 years of teaching experience.

With contributions from:

Yauhenia Dougaya

Nikola Lutz

Natasha López

Viktoriia Vitrenko

Friday, 09/12/2025

STUTTGART

7:30 pm

Gedok Galerie Stuttgart
Hölderlinstrasse 17
70174 Stuttgart

Free admission!
Donations welcome

The Orquesta Experimental de Instrumentos Nativos (OEIN) is an innovative Bolivian music ensemble dedicated to researching, preserving, and renewing indigenous music and Andean instruments. These instruments escape their museum captivity and connect with their history, transforming it into the aesthetics of our time. In their collaboration with a European duo, the vacancy on the anniversary of her abduction points to the absence of flutist Mariya Kalesnikava. These musical and social acts symbolize the demand for the right to self-determination of every living being.

with

Dos pares de la OEIN
Ethan Olmos Cuiza [traditional bolivian instruments]
Carlos Gutiérrez Quiroga [traditional bolivian instruments]
Tatiana López Churata [traditional bolivian instruments]
Romina Quisbert Maldonado [traditional bolivian instruments]
Nikola Lutz [Saxofon, Elektronik]

music by

Carlos Gutiérrez Quiroga
Nikola Lutz
Neil Luck
Tomomi Adachi
OEIN

sponsored by:

SKAM e.V.
Gedok Stuttgart
Albrecht Beck Stiftung

05/09/2025

COLOGNE

Maria Kalesnikava has been awarded the Günter Wallraff Prize for Press Law and Human Rights 2025, together with the country's journalists' association.

In its citation, the "Initiative Nachrichtenaufklärung" states that Maria is “a symbolic figure, representative of the many people who have sacrificed their freedom and their lives for a free and democratic Belarus”.

The prize, which is endowed with a total of 5,000 euros, will be awarded on Friday, May 9, 2025, at the Cologne Forum for Journalism Criticism on Deutschlandfunk radio.

With the prize, the "Initiative Nachrichtenaufklärung" aims to draw attention to topics and discourses that are neglected in the German and international media.

DLF press release