Vika Biran–born in 1990 in Pinsk, Belarus. Publicist, project manager and researcher.

She studied journalism at the Belarusian State University and the Belarus Collegium, as well as contemporary society, ethics and politics at the European College for Liberal Arts in Belarus at ECLAB.

From 2010 to 2016 she collaborated with the Belarus Free Theatre as an actress. In 2014, together with a group of like-minded people, she launched MAKEOUT, a project about the lives of LGBTIQ+ people in Belarus, which for several years was the largest Belarusian platform for queer voices and in 2021 ended its existence.

In September 2020, Vika took part in peaceful protests in Minsk and was sentenced to 15 days in jail.

Vika currently lives in Berlin and studies cultural studies at the Europa University Viadrina in Frankfurt (Oder). She is a project manager at Unit, a network of journalists and activists working on LGBTIQ+ topics in Eastern Europe, Central Asia and the South Caucasus. Vika is a freelance writer. Her latest hobby is writing columns for the Belsat media. She is fluent in Belarusian, English, German and Russian.

Photo Credits: Alexandra Kononchenko