Acquired Reflex

Project by LЁD collective / 2015 — 2016

Our childhood has passed in a country that no longer exists, as there are no such values that belonged to it anymore. We grew up somewhere at the crossroads of epochs and came into the world of electronic impulses and capitalism. What defines the personal values from our common past and present history?

In this project we spy for ourselves, for the behavior in those situations where it is impossible to determine accurately who or what chooses the strategy of our actions: ourselves or stereotype, habit, acquired earlier reflex.

Everyone found himself in a situation where the committed work looks strange, counterintuitive in today's system of individual values. How we make decisions, and can we control it completely, by changing our inherited behavior code?

We construct "normal" everyday stories and are living through them again. It creates our common fictive flashback. Image here is a document of that remembrance - the ability to recognize our own template, a place where the viewer becomes an accomplice of our actions.

About LЁD

LЁD collective was founded in 2015 and consists of 6 young Belarusian artists working with documentary and art photography, photojournalism, text, video and installation.

We live in a world of constantly changing traditions and reference points, so we are interested in projects at the intersection of art and documentary. There we not only ask questions, but also re-define what is a documentary; we find new edges and opportunities of mediums used.

Being at the crossroads of Europe and Russia, between the European and Asian culture, we explore space and our own identity. Having grown up after the Soviet collapse in modern Belarus, which is stilled between capitalism and authoritarianism, we are trying to realize and convey a sense of time, where we found ourselves. We work with meanings, ideas and values and are not afraid to ask exciting questions to the viewer, society, state or ourselves.

The main objective of our collective is creation of collaborative projects in close interaction and support of each other. This approach provokes a clash of different views, positions, ideas and experience, which gives unexpected results that could be more interesting and deeper than the individual statements.

Our projects have been presented at international festivals and exhibitions in Lithuania, Germany, Poland, Georgia, Turkey, Russia, Ukraine; became winners in various competitions: Belarus Press Photo (Belarus), PRAFOTA (Belarus), Golden Mask (Russia), International Biennale of modern drama "Free Theatre" (England), Vilnius Photo Circle (Lithuania).

Members of collective: Maksim Dosko, Anna Levankova, Aleksey Naumchik, Maksim Sarychau, Aleksandra Soldatova, Alexander Mihalkovich.

On the photo (from left to right):
Aleksey Naumchik, Maksim Sarychau, Alexander Mihalkovich, Aleksandra Soldatova, Volha Bychkova (Coordinator), Maksim Dosko, Anna Levankova.