Slavs and Tatars: Philip Simurgh Hoffman

Screenprint on t-shirt, 100% cotton

Slavs and Tatars see in Philip Simurgh Hoffman much of the shape-shifting, even transcendent qualities of the mythical bird Simurgh.

Slavs and Tatars (founded 2006, Eurasia) is an internationally renowned art collective devoted to an area East of the former Berlin Wall and West of the Great Wall of China known as Eurasia. Since its inception in 2006, the collective has shown a keen grasp of polemical issues in society, clearing new paths for contemporary discourse via a wholly idiosyncratic form of knowledge production: including popular culture, spiritual and esoteric traditions, oral histories, modern myths, as well as scholarly research. The collective’s practice is based on three activities: exhibitions, publications, and lecture-performances. In addition to launching a residency and mentorship program for young professionals from their region, Slavs and Tatars opened Pickle Bar in 2020, a Slavic aperitivo bar-cum-project space a few doors down from their studio in the Moabit district of Berlin.