Dzmitry Suslau

Supervisors: Dr Richard Mole and Dr Andrew Harris

Present status: PhD candidate

Working title of thesis: Constructing Urban Narratives: Public Art and the Gendering of Urban Space in Vilnius, Minsk and Kaliningrad

Research: In his doctoral research supported by SSEES Foundation Scholarship, Dzmitry focuses on artistic practices in the public realm of three post-Soviet cities, namely Vilnius, Minsk and Kaliningrad.

This project provides a critical evaluation of the principal directions in state and institutional commissioning as well as independent artistic expressions in these cities, including the works that could be classified as art-and-architecture and art in the public interest. This gives an opportunity to examine a series of overlapping issues, including the diversity of publics as well as functions and gendering of public space.

Research interests: Public art and urban interventionism; discourses of post-socialist urban identity; gendering of public space; post-Soviet sexualities and curatorial practice.