Since 2012 at the latest, relations between the EU and Russia have once again experienced ever deeper alienation. (Culture) politically, a drifting apart began, which continued in a profound loss of trust, the severance of official bilateral and multilateral relations in the institutional cultural sector and in fact led to a collapse of Russian-Belarusian and European cultural network as a result of Russia's military invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
It is precisely those Russian and Belarusian artists who do not allow themselves to be absorbed by a currently prevailing system want. They in particular, who continue to live in Russia or Belarus, are increasingly frowned upon in their own country as representatives of supposedly decadent “Western art,” risk draconian punishments for non-conformist, critical artistic creation and live and work increasingly isolated and unknown from the West.
