Reverse Joy, 2012 and Scenarios for Europe (III), 2012
Slavs and Tatars is an art collective and “a faction of polemics and intimacies devoted to an area east of the former Berlin Wall and west of the Great Wall of China known as Eurasia”. Founded in 2006, the group addresses a shared sphere of influence between Slavs, Caucasians and Central Asians. Slavs and Tatars’ work often takes place in the public sphere: via public space, institutions or media. They have repeatedly collaborated with and been featured in 032c, the bi-annual culture publication from Berlin.
Their year long project 79.89.09 looked at two key dates; the Iranian Revolution of 1979 and the fall of Communism in 1989, to better understand the historic year of 2009. 79.89.09 was exemplary of the multidisciplinary work of the group: consisting of a lecture series, a print edition, a mirror mosaic Resist Resisting God as well as a feature in two consecutive issues of 032c.
The 79.89.09 lecture series has been presented at the Rietveld Academy’s Studium Generale in Amsterdam, Triumph Gallery, Moscow, the Dutch Art Institute, the Warsaw Museum of Modern Art, the Bruce High Quality Foundation University as part of the Edifying series of performative lectures, and the Nordic Embassies in Berlin as part of Correct Me if I’m Critical. For the 10th Sharjah Biennial, the collective presented “Friendship of Nations: Polish Shi’ite Showbiz”, an elaboration on “79.89.09” which looked at the folklore and crafts accompanying the ideological impulses of the end of Communism and the beginning of revolutionary Islam.