Slavs and Tatars

Founded in 2006, Slavs and Tatars mine the complexities and unexpected affinities across cultures through publications, lecture performances, and installations. Originally set up as an informal book-club, the collective explores a literary and political geography known as Eurasia, defined by themselves as “east of the former Berlin Wall and west of the Great Wall of China”. The artists work across cycles, where extended periods of research give life to an eco-system of installations, sculptures, lectures, and printed matter that question our understanding of language, ritual and identity. In this context, viewers are invited to perform the "metaphysical splits" by trying to accommodate conflicting ideas and sensations drawn from opposite ends of the cultural, religious, historical, or emotional spectrum. Imbued with humor and a generosity of spirit, their work commonly blends pop visuals with esoteric traditions, oral rituals with scholarly analysis in a way that opens new paths of contemporary discourse.

Submitted by Tanya Bonakdar Gallery