“The secrets of Lake Balkhash: community, narratives, memories and landscapes of past and future” ︎︎︎ Aigerim Kapar, 21 October, 2022, 6:30pm at Motto book shop.
“The secrets of Lake Balkhash” focuses on the study of local values of Lake Balkhash in Kazakhstan and how these values impact the everyday lives of local communities. Lake Balkhash is one of the biggest endorheic water bodies in the world and has a millennia-long history of sociocultural life, ecological traditions, and seminomadic management methods. The region also represents the position of the Kazakh Steppe, where the interests of China and Russia intersect. Today, the industrialization and militarization of the colonial Soviet period continue to prevail and frame the basin as a zone of ecological and social crisis. Lake Balkhash may disappear in twenty years and faces a similar situation to the drainage of the Aral Sea by the Soviet government in the 1950s for the purposes of agricultural production.
IN MEMORY OF NIHAT KARATAŞLI ︎︎︎ 10 December 2021, 7pm, at Pickle Bar
Nihat Karataşlı was a versatile artist who explored many different fields: making videos, animations, sculptures, performances and installations, mostly concerned with queer intimacy in physical and virtual spaces. He was selected to be part of the residency-mentorship program at Slavs and Tatars in September 2021. We learned of his passing with great sadness. In memory of Nihat Karataşlı, Pickle bar screened his movie Hüzün is a tranny name (2020), introduced by Alper Turan, Leman S. Darıcıoğlu and Gülşah Mursaloğlu.
(credits: photo provided by Nihat Karataşlı).
CAN-DO, HOW TO? ︎︎︎ Artist talk: Olga Micińska in conversation with Slavs and Tatars, 23 September 2021 at Polnisches Institut Berlin
Artist and builder Olga Micińska proposes a hybrid approach to art making, one which challenges the fast-paced production inundating the realm of contemporary art, and at the same time alludes to the traditional model of artist-maker. The presentation was followed by a discussion with Slavs and Tatars, which opened up a deluge of questions regarding the methodological role of craft in contemporary art, and exploring its critical and performative potential.
The event was supported by Polnisches Institut Berlin in the framework of Micińska's residency at Slavs and Tatars.
CRACK-UP – CRACK DOWN ︎︎︎ Film program curated by Alper Turan, 27–30 May 2021, online
In this film program–an extension of our curatorial endeavor at the intersection of graphics and satire–we aimed to bring together movies that skewer societal norms and thereby suggest other ways of being. Some of the movies on the list are revising particular histories to criticize the past and today; some are grappling antagonistically with the former contexts in which the movies were produced and set, while the satire in the movies are still highly relevant in the contemporary era, and the rest envision a future which is always in a state of becoming and is continuously on the horizon.
The program was part of the exhibition “Crack Up - Crack Down” curated by Slavs and Tatars at U-Jazdowski.
CONVERSATION WITH BELARUSIAN ARTISTS ︎︎︎ Vasilisa Palianina and Andrey Anro featuring Alexander Komarov (AIR Berlin Alexanderplatz) and Slavs and Tatars, 5 February 2021, 6pm online, event language: Russian
This meeting took place as part of the mentoring program of the artistic group Slavs and Tatars, in which Vasilisa Palyanina and Andrey Anro took part from November to December, 2020. The event was realized in cooperation with AIR Berlin Alexanderplatz. Vasilisa and Andrey talked about their art projects of the last year and the founding of the art group “Who but us”. Together, we discussed how the political situation affects artistic perception and the possibility of work and reflection in a situation of great stress. We also addressed the subject of art at turning points in history and the position of the artist, the perception of events directly from within and outside of Belarus, as well as what happens to the artist and his practice when moving to a new environment and cultural context.
The event is supported by Goethe Institut Minsk in the framework of Anro and Palyanina’s residency at Slavs and Tatars.
(credits: image provided by Andrey Anro)
POSE, SUBORDINATION, FESTIVITIES AND HEDGEHOGS ︎︎︎︎︎︎ Uladzimir Hramovich, Sergey Shabohin, Ala Savashevich and Olga Sosnovskaja, 7 June–1 July 2020 at Aperto Room, Berlin
In collaboration with Aperto Room and Goethe-Institut Minsk, Slavs and Tatars is pleased to present an exhibition and public program featuring our first four Belarusian artists: Uladzimir Hramovich, Sergey Shabohin, Ala Savashevich and Olga Sosnovskaja. What is young, contemporary Belarusian art? What are the connecting points with global artistic practices? How resilient are post-Soviet realities? All these questions intrigued us when we first met artist, curator, and chief editor of Art Aktivist and KALEKTAR, Sergey Shabohin. His initial presentation on Belarusian contemporary art provided us a starting point to inquire further about young voices coming from Belarus and how to present this line of questions to a broader public in Berlin.
Pose, Subordination, Festivities and Hedgehogs was conceived as a cooperation with Slavs and Tatars’ residency and mentoring program. In collaboration with the first phase of the residency, Aperto selected one project per artist to provide a small insight into the current topics of interests and artistic practises of the Belarusian art scene.
WHEN RED AND WHITE AIN’T SO BLACK AND WHITE ︎︎︎ Andrey Anro, Uladzimir Hramovich, Vasilisa Palianina, Ala Savashevich, Sergey Shabohin, Olia Sosnovskaya, 5 February–19 March 2022 at Sentiment, Zürich
Pickle Bar sees in fermentation an analogy for the social transformation of stagnate, spoiled, or rotten political substance into a bracing regime to share the surplus fruits of souring. For the exhibition When Red and White ain’t so Black and White at Sentiment, Slavs and Tatars’ Pickle Bar invites six former Belarusian participants of the studio’s mentorship program (2018–2020) to articulate an argument around these notions. Each of the invited artists investigates their epoch amidst the cult of personality, the tyranny of individualism and its repression on collective bodies. A white and red stork offers us a more generative take on the white and red flag, asking us to reconsider new symbols far from a reductive nationalist attitude, be they related to exhaustion, hospitality, club or queer culture.
IN MEMORY OF NIHAT KARATŞLI ︎︎︎ 10 December 2021, 7pm, at Pickle Bar
Nihat Karataşlı was a versatile artist who explored many different fields: making videos, animations, sculptures, performances and installations, mostly concerned with queer intimacy in physical and virtual spaces. He was selected to be part of the residency-mentorship program at Slavs and Tatars in September 2021. We learned of his passing with great sadness. In memory of Nihat Karataşlı, Pickle bar screened his movie Hüzün is a tranny name (2020), introduced by Alper Turan, Leman S. Darıcıoğlu and Gülşah Mursaloğlu.
LESSONS FROM THE YEAST ︎︎︎ Teodora Jeremić and Kamilė Krasauskaitė, 3 December 2021 at Pickle Bar, Berlin
With a lecture-performance Labour of Love Kamilė Krasauskaitė will open up the question of building new structures and connection with others, and will present how cohabiting and collaboration between two strangers looks like in a microbial universe. Through communal bread listening we will try to hear ancient whispers of the bread and with zine Lessons from the (y)east to share a collaborative piece of mind on collaborating, cohabiting, coliving, coworking, constructing, connection, and communication, all accompanied by rakija, boza and pickles.
The event was supported by ifa (Institut für Auslandsbeziehungen), in the framework of Teodora Jeremić's residency at Slavs and Tatars.
CAN-DO, HOW TO? ︎︎︎ Artist talk: Olga Micińska in conversation with Slavs and Tatars, 23 September 2021 at Polnisches Institut Berlin
Artist and builder Olga Micińska proposes a hybrid approach to art making, one which challenges the fast-paced production inundating the realm of contemporary art, and at the same time alludes to the traditional model of artist-maker. The presentation was followed by a discussion with Slavs and Tatars, which opened up a deluge of questions regarding the methodological role of craft in contemporary art, and exploring its critical and performative potential.
The event was supported by Polnisches Institut Berlin in the framework of Micińska's residency at Slavs and Tatars.
PINEAPPLE IN A JAR ︎︎︎ Sarvenaz Mostofey, Krzysztof Gutfrański, Guilherme Lessa, Daniella Domingues, 27 August 2021 at Pickle Bar, Berlin
There are forms of fermentation that would be unthinkable in certain parts of the world. On 27th August, residents of Slavs and Tatars, sound artist Sarvenaz Mostofey together with researcher and curator Krzysztof Gutfrański join forces with Brazilian writer Guilherme Lessa and graphic designer Daniella Domingues to create an immersive evening focusing on lacto-fermenting taboos in Brazil, having the pineapple as an allegory of this taboo and of all things exotic, as well as a reference for the tastes and aromas to be experienced during the event. More information about the project here.
SOAKING WET︎︎︎Hana Ćurak, Bojan Stojčić, April–June 2021 at Pickle Bar, Berlin
Pickle Bar kicks off its Summer program on 13th June with Soaking Wet, a participatory performance by past resident, Hana Ćurak, in collaboration with the artist Bojan Stojčić, both hailing from Sarajevo. Soaking Wet addresses fermentation as a means of healing social ills, in which participants are invited to engage in a traditional ritual of foot-soaking known, in Bosnian as kiseljenje nogu (foot pickling). Dipping the feet in a simple mixture of water and bath salts, the working people of Bosnia take it slowly and add a bit of rahatluk* to each foot soak. Choose your salt, dip your feet, and scrub-a-dub-away while our masters of ceremony tell you all about the geopolitics of pickling.
The event was supported by ifa in the framework of Hana Ćurak's residency at Slavs and Tatars.
CRACK UP – CRACK DOWN ︎︎︎ film program curated by Alper Turan, 27–30 May 2021, online
In this film program–an extension of our curatorial endeavor at the intersection of graphics and satire–we aimed to bring together movies that skewer societal norms and thereby suggest other ways of being. Some of the movies on the list are revising particular histories to criticize the past and today; some are grappling antagonistically with the former contexts in which the movies were produced and set, while the satire in the movies are still highly relevant in the contemporary era, and the rest envision a future which is always in a state of becoming and is continuously on the horizon.
The program was part of the exhibition “Crack Up - Crack Down” curated by Slavs and Tatars at U-Jazdowski.
CONVERSATION WITH BELARUSIAN ARTISTS ︎︎︎ Vasilisa Palianina and Andrey Anro featuring Alexander Komarov (AIR Berlin Alexanderplatz) and Slavs and Tatars, 5 February 2021, 6pm, online, event language: Russian
This meeting took place as part of the mentoring program of the artistic group Slavs and Tatars, in which Vasilisa Palyanina and Andrey Anro took part from November to December, 2020. The event was realized in cooperation with AIR Berlin Alexanderplatz. Vasilisa and Andrey talked about their art projects of the last year and the founding of the art group “Who but us”. Together, we discussed how the political situation affects artistic perception and the possibility of work and reflection in a situation of great stress. We also addressed the subject of art at turning points in history and the position of the artist, the perception of events directly from within and outside of Belarus, as well as what happens to the artist and his practice when moving to a new environment and cultural context.
The event is supported by Goethe Institut Minsk in the framework of Anro and Palyanina’s residency at Slavs and Tatars.
Credits: image by Andrey Anro
