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The Museum of Free Belarus in Warsaw invites you to the opening of “Bitter Herbs”, a project by Maryia Hvardzeitsava. The exhibition is dedicated to themes of loss, memory, reconciliation, and dialogue between the human and the natural. It explores the complexity of working with Holocaust memory — in the territories that were once the Pale of Settlement and where, during World War II, hundreds of thousands of Jews were exterminated.
During the Soviet period, many mass burial sites were turned into fields, parks, and forests. Today they are overgrown with grass and trees, as if nature is “healing” the wounds. But does this mean that human memory is healing as well?
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Maryia Hvardzeitsava combines photography, installation, and video to show how memory takes root through forms of nature, material traces, and the silence of neglected spaces. The basis of her research became work with an “atlas” of wild herbs collected at twelve major burial sites in Belarus. These plants, dried and preserved in botanical atlases, became the foundation of a series of collages and installations incorporating human hair and latex layers imitating skin. In this way, the artist demonstrates how memory is embodied in soil, body, and plants.
These plants, drawn from the soil that witnessed tragedy, symbolize both personal and collective ways of remembering. The atlas is transformed into artworks that merge documentary accuracy with metaphorical depth. “This project is about herbs, forests, and monuments — about everything that remains of the hundreds of thousands of people who were killed,” the artist says. “I want to create a space for reflection and dialogue: how we remember and honor those who perished.”
The project offers viewers an experience of encountering memory through the natural and the human. It creates a space for reflection on how we remember today and how nature and humanity intertwine in this memory. Especially for Belarus, where many Holocaust sites remain unmarked and now lie hidden beneath forests and fields, these works serve as testimony and a reminder of the violence of the past.
The exhibition “Bitter Herbs” will be on view until September 6, 2025.
Museum of Free Belarus, ul. Foksal 11, Warsaw
Tuesday–Friday: 16:00–20:00
Saturday–Sunday: 12:00–20:00
Admission free
Maryia Hvardzeitsava is an interdisciplinary visual artist, born in Minsk in 1982, currently living and working in London. She is a graduate of the MA Arts and Politics program at Goldsmiths, University of London, as well as courses in Art History, Art & Business at Sotheby’s Institute of Art. In her works, she explores themes of memory, loss, and political history with irony and sharpness, combining documentary materials with artistic metaphors.
