BERGAMOT GROUP (Volha Maslouskaya, Raman Tratsiuk) is an artist collective founded in 1998 in Brest (Belarus) by artists Volha Maslouskaya and Raman Tratsiuk.
The group operates at the intersection of art and life, developing practices in performance, interactive actions, video, installation and photography, while also curating international art projects. Their early works focused on interpersonal communication, gender and violence, but over time their practice shifted toward exploring the relationship between artist and viewer, as well as the tensions between authorship and participation.
An important direction in their work has been the strategy of redistributing roles and involving other people in the creative process. Through the temporary “replacement” of collective members, Bergamot questions the notion of individual authorship and the stability of artistic identity. In 2010, the group initiated Organic Work, an international competition for performance scripts, abandoning the traditional model of authorship in favour of open collective creation.
In later projects, Bergamot addresses issues of social identity, solidarity and the transformation of consciousness in public space. Their works examine mechanisms of power, vulnerability and trust, while the performative gesture becomes a tool for reflecting on the relationship between the individual and the community, and between private experience and public visibility.
The group’s works have been presented, among other venues, at the Venice Biennale and Manifesta 9, as well as at MUMOK, the ZKM | Center for Art and Media Karlsruhe, the Saint- Étienne Métropole Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, the National Museum in Warsaw and the National Museum in Poznań.