ABC of exclamations

ABC of exclamations

Installation/Performance ^WP

Comic drawings: Kastuś Žhybul

Poetry: Vera Burlak

Composition: Georgia Koumará

For my son Kastuś and me, the search for exclamations for each letter became a fascinating game, and the creation of drawings and poems became an experience of openness, a reason to talk about things we might not otherwise have spoken about. A new level of inner freedom emerged.

(Vera Burlak)

The ABC of exclamations is an artistic interpretation of the Belarusian alphabet by poet Vera Burlak and her son Kastuś Zhybul (19), who lives with autism. The two have found an emotional exclamation for each sound of the 34 letters and transformed these exclamations into 34 stories–fantastic comic drawings by Kastuś, whimsical, funny, enigmatic poems by Vera. Stuttgart-based animation filmmaker Monika Nuber brings the comics into motion together with Kastuśś and Georgia Koumará embeds the walk-in installation in a 40-minute sound narrative. The result is an impressive plea for imagination, freedom and mutual attention.

The Belarusian poet and educator Vera Burlak uses the ABC of exclamations to respond to the restrictive and manipulative education system of post-Soviet autocracies, ‘which is still influenced by Soviet »collectivism«. A personality is only important if it can do something for the collective. And the complex and contradictory world of their feelings and emotions is more of a hindrance and is suppressed.

The ABC of exclamations is therefore not just about emotional interjections. It is linked to considerations about the emotional sphere and its manifestations, about traditions of family upbringing, about communication between the generations and about how emotions manifest themselves in them. It is about the value system–one’s own and the public one.’