Iryna Herasimovich was born in Minsk in 1978. A literary translator and essayist, she has translated authors such as Lukas Bärfuss, Franz Hohler, Dea Loher, Nora Gomringer, Jonas Lüscher and Ilma Rakusa into Belarusian. She works as a dramaturge and curator in the field of visual arts and is a member of the German Academy for Language and Poetry.

When Belarus was still a blank spot on the map, there was already an idiosyncratic, heterogeneous cultural scene that created spaces in which ideas of a life that was not controlled took shape. Under the unfavorable conditions of the rigid system, fixated on the Soviet past, a parallel society was able to develop, in niches, invisible to many. The repressions that have swept the country and traumatized society since the crushing of the white-red-white protests have also dissolved these niches. Iryna Herasimovich offers insights into this scene. Many things are now breaking open: repressed conflicts, illusions, hopes and disappointments. "Who is standing at which point? What was before that? What comes after?"