The Free Belarus Museum has a new member of its team — Anna Gataleta from Italy. Anna came to Warsaw as part of the Erasmus programme and will be working with the Museum’s team for the next year while continuing her own research.
Anna studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Macerata, where she specialised in museology and museography. This year, she defended her research project on the cultural heritage of Eastern Europe.
While working on her degree, Anna conducted extensive research on the countries of the region and became particularly interested in Belarus. She read materials by Belarusian artists, journalists and researchers — and this was how she discovered the Free Belarus Museum in Warsaw.
That encounter marked the beginning of a new chapter. Anna contacted the Museum’s team and proposed carrying out her own research project in Warsaw.
At the centre of Anna’s research interests are cultural heritage, memory and identity in Eastern Europe.
“I study cultural heritage, but I primarily look at it through the lens of memory and identity,” Anna explains.
One of the topics she is working on is the preservation of cultural heritage during wartime. For her, it is important not only to study monuments, art and cultural sites, but also to understand the role they play in preserving the memory and identity of a society.
During her research in Italy, Anna had access to a large number of books, articles and other materials. But there was still a certain distance between the researcher and the reality she was studying.
Working at the Museum helps bridge that distance.
Now Anna can speak directly with people, exchange ideas, ask questions and receive information firsthand. As she explains, this was exactly what she missed while conducting her research in Italy.
Over the coming year in Warsaw, she will continue her research while also sharing what she learns with her university and colleagues in Italy.
Anna comes from Western Europe and notes that there are still many misunderstandings and misconceptions between Western and Southern Europe and Eastern Europe.
For her, working with Belarusian heritage is an opportunity to better understand the reality of the region and pass that knowledge on.
“I think we need to know what is happening, even when we are outside of this reality. We need to know what is really happening. And I think I can be a kind of bridge between these two realities,” Anna says.
For Anna, this year in Warsaw is an opportunity to continue her own research, gain practical experience at a museum institution and be closer to the subject she studies.
For us, it is also an opportunity to look at Belarus and the work of the Museum through the eyes of a researcher from Italy.
Anna has already won the hearts of our team with her sunny smile, knowledge and curiosity about everything happening in our space.
