The title of the exhibition, Tatar* Kiss, refers to an open-mouth kiss in the Tsardom of Muscovy—now known as Russia. By the 18th century, this term was changed to “French kiss”, reflecting broader political shifts such as racialization of the non-Christian and nomadic peoples Indigenous to Asia, who were homogeneously described as Tatars (or Tartars). These changes were also influenced by the European Enlightenment and major written works such as North and East Tartary (1692) by Dutch geographer and politician Nicolaes Witsen.

While “Tatars” were framed as “barbaric” and thus subjected to colonization, Russia, in contrast, positioned itself as a proper “civilizing” empire and actively colonized the nations described by Witsen. Many of them still constitute what is known as the Russian Federation today.

The group exhibition Tatar* Kiss showcases seven artists, among them are Bashqort, Buryad-Mongolian, Circassian, Volga Tatar, Kalmyk (which belong to the earlier-mentioned nations) and Curaçaoan. Juxtaposed to each other, their artworks expose the complicity of imperial regimes, resist framing colonial and post-colonial as temporally distinct periods, and acknowledge the simultaneity of colonizing efforts and decolonial resistance. Some of the artists in this exhibition highlight how Indigenous peoples once colonized by Russia also participated in European colonial projects such as the Napoleonic wars (Stas Shärifullá and Ziliä Qansurá) or human zoos (Victoria Sarangova). They question existing practices of reconciliation and follow the routes that brought uprooted enslaved people to plantations and so-called colonial goods to Europe for global trade, also with Russia (Lakisha Apostel). Some turn to the precolonial past to envision a more sustainable future (Milana Khalilova), while others address ongoing cultural erasure, creating spaces where their languages can be freely spoken and heard (Yaniya Mikhalina and Natalia Papaeva).

Tatar* Kiss explores a bright collection of stories—woven by the hands of women, danced with ancestors, sung by the comrades, whispered by the wind, and witnessed by water and land. The exhibition is an act of emancipation and care; it acknowledges hatred, exploitation, and violence and is eager to replace them with love and joy. We are kissing empires back, kissing with tongues that they made us forget.

Lakisha Apostel is a The Hague-based performance artist, born in Rotterdam, the Netherlands (1999) and raised in Curaçao. Her work explores the relationship between the body, space, and memory, often through durational or site-specific performances. Through embodied rituals in which the body interacts with apparatuses and surrounding space, Lakisha aims to address displacement and the longing for belonging, specifically how uprootedness exists and functions in her homeland of Curaçao. Her practice seeks to develop language and methodologies of healing in relation to displacement, contributing to the broader discourse on uprootedness in Curaçao.

Milana Khalilova is an artist and designer born in the village of Zalukokoazhe in Kabardino-Balkaria, the North Caucasus. She graduated from the College of Design of Kabardino-Balkaria State University named after Khatuta Berbekov in 2004. In 2017, she was a resident of the Mikhail Shemyakin Foundation in France. Until recently, she used to live in Nalchik, Kabardino-Balkaria. She mainly works with animation, traditional craft techniques, and book design. Her professional and research interests include the interaction between the archaic forms of folk, collective art and contemporary art practices, as well as work with the ‘difficult heritage’ of the North Caucasus. Among her recent projects is a collaborative research Ulyap Songs: Beyond Circassian Tradition (2023), released and published by FLEE.

Yaniya Mikhalina is a Volga Tatar research-based artist based in Oslo, navigating postcolonial realities, its difficult pasts, and possible scenarios for reparative futures. She works across disciplines, mainly with (moving) image, sound, archive, and non-exemplary material heritage, often sourced from family archives and contemporary political conditions. She is particularly interested in how the gaze is produced, represented, and historicized within documentary contexts. Mikhalina is about to finish her PhD in artistic research at the Trondheim Art Academy, NTNU, titled The Colonial Madness: Feminist-Indigenous Cosmologies.

Natalia Papaeva is a visual/time-based artist born and raised in Buryatia (Eastern Siberia) and based in the Netherlands. Her artistic process is set in motion with text – read or written – which then translates into movements, images, sounds. Often, her endangered birth language materializes in her practice. It brings the Buryat language from the domestic sphere into the public realm and by doing so she resists the notion of endangerment. She holds a BA from the Royal Academy of Art, Hague and won the TENT Rotterdam Award in 2018 for the best video work. From 2022 to 2024 Papaeva was a resident at Rijksakademie, Amsterdam. Her works have been shown at HKW, M HKA, frei_raum Q21 exhibition space/MuseumsQuartier, Asian Biennial and other international platforms.

Victoria Sarangova is an artist of Kalmyk origin based in Berlin, Germany. In her practice, she explores themes of progress, memory, and identity—often rooted in the context of her homeland Kalmykia, a republic in the southwest of Russia. Drawing on multiple “in-between” standpoints—including her mixed background and ongoing migration journey—she re-calls, re-cognizes, traces, and unfolds layered histories and inherited narratives. 

Stas Shärifullá, aka HMOT, is an artist, researcher, and musician exploring sound, identity, and memory through the lens of Yılan Bashqort heritage. Born in East Siberia (Russia), Stas engages with aural traditions of North and Central Asian cultures, focusing on how sound shapes identity and memory. As an autodidact computer musician and quraysı (traditional Bashqort flute performer), Stas practices in a wide range of media, including freeform composition, mixed-media installations, performative lectures, interventions, and more. Stas is a PhD candidate and lecturer at the University of Basel, guest lecturer at HGK FHNW, and co-curator of the Resynthesising the Traditional artistic research lab at CTM Festival. Stas is based in Basel, Switzerland. 

Ziliä Qansurá is a multidisciplinary artist born in Bashkortostan (Russia). In her artistic practice, she combines paintings, installations and performances. In the past two years, she has more and more often returned to the felt practice and creates tapestries and sculptures addressing such issues as national and gender identities, collective trauma and Turkofuturism. Ziliiä holds degrees from the Russian Institute of Theatre Arts GITIS, the Institute of Contemporary Art in Moscow, and Ufa College of Art. Currently, she studies at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna and is based there.

Events

27 September

Opening Tatar* Kiss

1 – 3 pm