Slavs and Tatars and the biennial circuit of Eurasian narratives
Published on 08/28/2026 at 11:34 | Editorial responsibility: Rafael Müller, Editor-in-Chief AD HOC NEWS
Slavs and Tatars have built a distinctive position by threading Eurasian linguistics, humor, and politics through installations and performances. Their projects consistently translate between alphabets, faith traditions and ideologies across the broad region east of the former Berlin Wall and west of the Great Wall of China, making them a recurring presence in biennial and museum contexts.
Biennials and institutional projects
Slavs and Tatars frequently anchor their practice in long-form institutional projects, rather than short-run gallery cycles, giving curators space to engage with their research-heavy installations and lecture-performances. Their work has appeared across museums from Museo Jumex in Mexico City to Wereldmuseum in Amsterdam, often framed as immersive environments where reading, listening and drinking tea become collective acts.
At Museo Jumex, the installation Samovar Swell proposes a space for communion through reading and tea, combining multilingual publications, sound interventions and the central motif of a samovar as a gesture of hospitality and gathering. Publications are displayed on rahlé, X-shaped supports for sacred texts, and visitors sit on kilims, underscoring how everyday objects and devotional formats carry political and linguistic histories.
Presence at fairs and regional art weeks
While the collective is not tied to a single market center, Slavs and Tatars appear within regional art weeks and fair-adjacent programming that highlight their cross-cultural focus. For Hong Kong Art Week 2026, Rossi & Rossi staged their first solo exhibition in the city, ? (?? / who) are you?, bringing together sculptures, books, installations and lecture-performances that probe questions of being and belonging through multilingual wordplay.
The Hong Kong show underscored the duo’s ongoing interest in what they describe as the geography 'east of the former Berlin Wall and west of the Great Wall of China'. Through this self-defined terrain, they resist reductive identity frameworks and instead stage fluid, irreverent encounters between different language families and belief systems, inviting audiences from fair circuits to engage with complex histories beyond straightforward market narratives.
Exhibitions, biennials and background on Slavs and Tatars
Further reporting on Slavs and Tatars at museums, biennials and fairs can be found in the AD HOC NEWS archive and institutional resources.
The work core and Eurasian focus
Slavs and Tatars describe their practice as focused on the region stretching between the former Berlin Wall, Central Asia and the Great Wall of China, using this terrain as both subject and method. Across texts, installations and performances, they investigate how alphabets, transliteration and translation shape political imaginaries, often juxtaposing Cyrillic, Arabic, Latin and other scripts within single works.
Current state of the practice
Against this backdrop, Slavs and Tatars continue to develop institution-based projects and research cycles on Eurasian languages and belief systems, with museums and curators framing their work as long-term engagements rather than one-off presentations.
Key facts on Slavs and Tatars
- Artist: Slavs and Tatars
- Medium / Genre: Installation, text-based research, performance
- Place(s) of practice: Studio and practice centered on Eurasia, often working from Berlin and other European bases
- Active since: Mid-2000s, with over two decades of projects mapping regions between the former Berlin Wall and the Great Wall of China
- Key work groups: Eurasia cycle, Samovar Swell, ? (?? / who) are you?, Beyonsense
- Current/last exhibition: Samovar Swell, Museo Jumex, installation conceived as a space for reading and tea, activated by performative and sound-based interventions.
- Major collections: Presence in major museum programs such as Museo Jumex (Mexico City), MoMA (New York, through Projects 98: Slavs and Tatars), and other European institutions that have hosted solo presentations.
- Awards: Various curatorial invitations and institutional commissions; the practice is framed more through projects than headline prizes, according to gallery and museum biographies.
- Next date: currently no announced date in the 30-day window
Frequently asked questions about Slavs and Tatars
Where can Slavs and Tatars’ work be experienced in depth?
Long-form installations such as Samovar Swell at Museo Jumex offer extended encounters with their practice, combining reading spaces, sound interventions and performative activations that foreground translation and hospitality.
How do Slavs and Tatars position their geography of interest?
They focus on a vast area 'east of the former Berlin Wall and west of the Great Wall of China', using this self-defined Eurasian region to question fixed identities and to foreground linguistic and cultural hybridity.
What role do languages and scripts play in their installations?
Languages, alphabets and transliteration form both material and subject matter, with works often juxtaposing multiple scripts and devotional formats to explore how written forms carry ideology and belief.
This article was produced with a.i. support and editorially reviewed. All statements without guarantee; auction results, exhibition dates and awards may change at short notice.
