Birds of a Feather Birds of a Feather
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Slavs and Tatars, Samovar, 2024, vacuum-formed plastic, acrylic paint, 71 × 100 cm. Courtesy of Raster Gallery, Warsaw
Art

Birds of a Feather

Slavs and Tatars Rewrite the Past with Myth and Mischief
Steph Kretowicz
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time 17 minutes

The Eurasian art collective reimagines symbols of power through forgotten myths. As their recent Simurgh Self-Help exhibition at Warsaw’s Raster Gallery demonstrates, Slavs and Tatars are intent on translating not only languages but entire cultural narratives—from Persian epics to Soviet-altered alphabets—into tools for critique, humor, and healing. 

It’s what you’d expect from a member of the linguistically inclined, rhizomatic organism that is Slavs and Tatars, a platform he co-founded with partner Kasia Korczak. Alongside collaborators Stan de Natris, and Pickle Bar directors Anastasia Marukhina and Patricia Couvet, the collective focuses on the geographical region the group famously refers to as the area “east of the former Berlin Wall and west of the Great Wall of China.” Since its inception in 2006, Slavs and Tatars has published several books, presented numerous solo exhibitions and lecture-performances, and participated in countless group shows. They’ve shown their work in major institutions in New York, London, Paris, São Paulo, Gwangju, Abu Dhabi, as well as all across their focus region, like the Georgian city of Tbilisi and Azerbaijan’s capital Baku in the Caucasus. Slavs and Tatars’ eclectic and esoteric purview encompasses a wide range of topics, from the unlikely connections between the Iranian Revolution and the Polish Solidarity movement to the cross-cultural reach of the Turkic-Persian myth of the Simurgh.

Portrait Slavs and Tatars (Payam Sharifi, Kasia Korczak and Stan de Natris) in their Pickle Bar (c) 2018 Lêmrich (Alina Emrich, Kien Hoang Le) / Agentur FOCUS

“It’s considered to be a bird which has seen the destruction of the world three times over,” explains Sharifi, about the phoenix-like namesake of Slavs and Tatars’ recent Simurgh Self-​Help exhibition at Warsaw’s Raster Gallery. “It only

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Jyotisha is the Light of the Soul Jyotisha is the Light of the Soul
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Photo: courtesy of Ashuntossh Chaawlla
Breathe In

Jyotisha is the Light of the Soul

Iza Klementowska

In Indian tradition, energy is considered a universal life force, karma is the law of moral cause and effect, and reincarnation is the cycle of repeated births of the soul until spiritual liberation is attained.

In Indian spiritual traditions such as yoga, Ayurveda, or spiritual sciences like Jyotisha, energy is seen as the fundamental force of life that permeates the entire universe and everything in existence. This energy is often referred to as prana, the universal life force or vitality that flows through the body, mind, and environment. Energy within the body is perceived as a network of channels (nadi) through which prana flows. It can be subtle (spiritual) or more physical, but it is definitely dynamic—constantly changing and transforming, and affecting our health, emotions, and consciousness.

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