Slavs and Tatars: Transliterative Tease Lecture
Slavs and Tatars are an internationally-renowned art collective devoted to issues of language in an area east of the former Berlin Wall and west of the Great Wall of China known as Eurasia. This lecture-performance focuses on the Turkic languages of the former Soviet Union, as well as the eastern and western frontiers of the Turkic sphere, namely Anatolia and Xinjiang/Uighuristan. Through the lens of phonetic, semantic, and theological slippage, Transliterative Tease explores the potential for transliteration – the conversion of scripts – as a strategy equally of resistance and research into notions such as identity politics, colonialism, and faith. This lecture-performance attempts not to emancipate peoples or nations but rather the sounds rolling off our tongues. In collaboration with Backlit Gallery. Part of Nottingham Contemporary’s On Translations research strand.