Slavs and Tatars, founded in 2006
Payam Sharifi (b. 1976, Austin, Texas, US) lives and works in Berlin, Germany; Kasia Korczak (b. 1976, Łódź, Poland), lives and works in Berlin, Germany
Slavs and Tatars is an art collective devoted to an area east of the former Berlin Wall and west of the Great Wall of China known as Eurasia. Founded in 2006 as a collaboration between artists and designers Payam Sharifi and Kasia Korczak, who have since been joined by other artists from across the world; they explore idiosyncratic forms of knowledge production, including popular culture, spiritual and esoteric traditions, oral histories, modern myths and scholarly research. Their practice is based on three activities: books, exhibitions and performative lectures which primarily fall within one of eight research cycles. Imbued with humour and a generosity of spirit, their works are often interactive and public-facing, opening new paths of contemporary discourse. They have held many solo exhibitions across the world from Honolulu (2021) to Warsaw (2020) and Toronto to Ljubljana (both 2019) as well as showing in leading institutions such as MoMA, New York; Tate Modern, London; Centre Pompidou, Paris; and Istanbul Modern. The collective has also participated at international biennials such as the 2nd Islamic Biennale, Jeddah (2025); 5th Kochi Muziris Biennale, Kochi (2022-23); 58th Venice Biennale (2019); 8th Berlin Biennale and Manifesta 10 (both 2014); 9th Gwangju Biennale (2012). Beginning as an informal reading group, they have now published several books.