The internationally renowned artist collective Slavs and Tatars creates exhibitions, books, and lectures focusing on the art and politics of Eurasia. On October 11, it presented its newest performance-lecture, Red-Black Thread, in conjunction with the exhibition Siah Armajani: Follow This Line. The event, the group states, “addresses the construction of race, namely blackness, from the perspective of Russia, the Soviet Union, and communism. Due to the slave trade in the Americas and European imperialism, blackness is often construed through an Atlanticist perspective and in Anglophone and Francophone bodies of knowledge. From imperial Russia’s involvement in Africa to the Soviet instrumentalization of ‘the Negro question’ in the United States, Red-Black Thread challenges this Atlanticist understanding of blackness and race, through an unlikely constellation of ideas including orientalism [and] multiculturalism.”
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