HUKANNE is a media special project created by queer Belarusians about the experience of the LBQ community. Its title refers to the ancient Belarusian ritual of hukanne vjasny (calling the spring), when people would climb hills and sing loudly to invite spring and summer, times of change and renewal. In this tradition, women played a central role: they were the first to sing spring songs and lead the dances. That is why the project focuses on the feminine spectrum of the queer community — lesbians, bisexual, and queer women — whose voices have too often been silenced or overlooked.

The ritual of hukanne was always a collective act: many voices merging into a single chorus that called for spring. This metaphor has become particularly meaningful after 2020, when many queer Belarusians were forced into exile. Those who left and those who remained in the country still “call out” to one another across borders, maintaining ties and preserving the sense of being one community despite the trauma of displacement and separation.

The pagan nature of the ritual is also significant for the project’s symbolism. Hukanne vjasny is a polytheistic and polyphonic celebration, open to difference and multiplicity. It stands in contrast to the patriarchal tradition of a single “male god” and resonates strongly with queerness, which affirms the right to diversity, to multiple identities, and to the freedom of self-expression.

The call for spring was also a call for summer — a time of change and warmth. Summer is the season when cranes return home, and this metaphor carries special meaning for queer Belarusians in exile: it embodies the hope of one day returning — to their land, their culture, and their community.

HUKANNE became a chronicle and a space for exchange, documenting how queer Belarusians live through yet another crisis in the country’s history. It raised themes of Belarusian identity, growing older and ageing, queer motherhood, the place of queer Belarusians in history and in Holocaust memory, experiences of violence within families, and the path to self-acceptance. The project was addressed to a more mature audience, one that not only finds and opens its identity but goes further — into its exploration, into reflection on personal experience from different states and perspectives, from different points on the map.

HUKANNE became a symbol of the collective voice that unites queer Belarusians who remain in the country and those who were forced to leave. It creates a shared field of memory and hope, where women’s and queer voices resonate in full strength, calling out to one another across time and distance. The act of hukanne itself becomes a metaphor for survival, solidarity, and the future.

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