Roundtable and Album Presentation: Anatoly Kukharchuk’s The Secret of the Black Square | Archive of Light.

On 12 November 2026, the Belarusian Association of Photographers will host a roundtable as part of the Archive of Light photography festival, marking the 200th anniversary of photography and featuring the presentation of Belarusian photographer Anatoly Kukharchuk’s new album The Secret of the Black Square. The discussion will focus on the role and future of the printed photographic catalogue as a means of preserving exhibition projects and photographic heritage.

The event will take place at the Leonid Shchemelev Art Gallery in Minsk, bringing together photographers, curators, art historians, visual culture researchers, publishers and other professionals working across the field of photography and contemporary culture.

In 1826, Joseph Nicéphore Niépce produced the first known photographic image. Over the following two centuries, photography evolved from an early method of fixing light onto a surface into a complex artistic, documentary and research medium. As photography has changed, so have the forms through which it is preserved – from the unique photographic print to the exhibition, photobook and digital archive.

How can a photographic project be preserved after an exhibition has ended? This question will provide the central focus of the discussion.

The roundtable is occasioned by the presentation of The Secret of the Black Square, a new artist’s album and exhibition catalogue by Belarusian photographer Anatoly Kukharchuk, developed from his eponymous exhibition project.

Curators Elena Donbrova and Konstantin Sokolov describe the project as an investigation at the intersection of the Suprematist tradition of Kazimir Malevich and contemporary “optical archaeology.” The project explores the interaction of light and darkness, the formation of the photographic image, and the transformation of visual experience through photography.

The printed album extends the exhibition into another medium. Rather than documenting individual works alone, it preserves the project as a whole – its visual sequence, structure and curatorial context. The book thus transfers the exhibition experience from the gallery space into an independent form of viewing and preservation.

The roundtable will address:
— The photographic archive: What role can the printed publication play in preserving exhibition projects and photographic heritage?
— Exhibition and book: What is retained when an exhibition is translated into a publication, and what changes in the process?
— Author, curator, publisher: How are roles and responsibilities negotiated in the production of a photobook or exhibition catalogue?
— The materiality of photography: How does the experience of encountering photographs in a book differ from viewing them on a digital screen?
— The future of the photobook: What place does the printed publication occupy in contemporary photographic culture and in the preservation of visual heritage?

Event Information
12 November 2026, 17:30
Leonid Shchemelev Art Gallery
10 Revolyutsionnaya Street, Minsk, Belarus

Organised by: Belarusian Association of Photographers
Website: photounion.by
Email: phunionby@gmail.com