Slavs and Tatars
Group founded in 2005, which form Kasia Korczak, Payam Sharifi, Boy Vereecken and Victoria Camblin. Slavs and Tatars is 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. They are focusing on an oft-forgotten sphere of influence between Slavs, Caucasians and Central Asians.
Slavs and Tatars, an artist collective established by a Pole, a Belgian, an American and an Iranian, has prepared a project, which will introduce viewers to the world of Polish Tatars.
In the 20th century Warsaw had experienced many dramatic moments: from war and occupation to forced emigration. Wola, a district of Warsaw, where the Warsaw Ghetto was located, found itself in the middle of these events.
Despite the great success of regaining independence in the last twenty years, a part of the Polish and Warsaw (especially Wola) heritage was irretrievably lost leaving no influence on the national identity. Cosmopolitism and variety – once so characteristic features in Warsaw – today are merely historical souvenirs.
Placing a billboard in Wola in Warsaw and organizing a trip to Bohonik and Kruszyniany, Slavs and Tatars remind us of the romantic heritage of the eastern thread in the history in Poland – the tradition of the Polish Tatars. Polish Tatars, known also as the Lipka Tatars, settled down on the Polish land in the time of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. Despite of religious and ethnic conflicts, seemingly not being able to resolve, they swore an oath of loyalty to Rzeczpospolita and fought with the Poles in many wars.
The billboard Go East presents a legendary Hollywood actor, Charles Bronson, known from classic westerns, e.g. “Once Upon a Time in the West”, who was born as Karol Buczyński in a Lipka Tatar family.
Slavs and Tatars decided to locate the billboard on a building of the former Wola Bakery, which is right next to the Muslim Tatar Cemetery in the Wola district.