esea contemporary is pleased to present The Contest of the Fruits, the first UK institutional solo exhibition by the internationally acclaimed art collective Slavs and Tatars. Running from 14 June to 14 September 2025, the exhibition is an exploration of language, politics, religion, and humour through the lens of a 19th-century Uighur poem, reimagined as a vibrant animated film and rap battle.
Presented in esea contemporary’s main gallery, The Contest of the Fruits is Slavs and Tatars’ first film, bringing to life a satirical Uighur poem through a dynamic rap battle between thirteen fruits. From the mulberry to the pomegranate, the quince to the jujube, each fruit’s physiognomy is shaped by its Uighur name, rendered in exquisite Arabic calligraphy. The film, accompanied by an original soundtrack performed by Uighur diaspora rapper Nash Tarr and mixed by Polish musician Lubomir Grzelak (aka Lutto Lento), blends pop, trap, and traditional maqam elements, offering a fresh and provocative take on Uighur culture’s syncretic and linguistic richness.
The original poem, first translated into English in 1936 by Gunnar Jarring, stages a verbal dispute (munāẓara) that resonates with themes of resilience and resistance. Through this animated adaptation, Slavs and Tatars invite audiences to engage with the complexities of Uighur identity, celebrating its ethnographic heritage while interrogating contemporary socio-political narratives.
Upon entering the exhibition, visitors will encounter Self-Help, a large-scale wallpaper installation featuring vibrant, colourful hands, translating Simurgh–a Sufi symbol of transcendence and rebirth–into international sign language. Having supposedly witnessed the destruction of the world three times over, the flaming bird Simurgh can be found across the Turkic-Persianate world, a mascot of sorts of the artist collective’s geographic remit. Installed against this backdrop are several sculptural and wall-based artworks, including Signal (2025), a newly commissioned work from Slavs and Tatars’ latest cycle, Simurgh Self-Help. Presented in esea contemporary’s communal project space, Signal reimagines the bird with an amameh (turban) and a glowing warm orange light. Evoking the flashing signals of emergency vehicles, Signal bridges the remote and the immediate, the spiritual and the critical, drawing visitors into a sacred space of reflection and connection.
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.
Solo exhibitions have taken place at Kunsthalle Baden-Baden (2025), M HKA, Antwerp (2023); Neubauer Collegium Gallery, Chicago (2022); Centre Pompidou, Metz (2022); Pinakothek der Moderne, Münich (2021); Albertinum, Dresden (2018); Salt Galata, Istanbul (2017); Blaffer Art Museum, Houston (2016); Kunsthalle Zurich (2014); Vienna Secession (2014); Museum of Modern Art, New York (2012); Dallas Museum of Art, (2012) amongst others.
Their work is part of the permanent collections of: M+, Hong Kong; Tate Modern, London; The Museum of Modern Art, New York; Dallas Museum of Art; Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, Turin; M HKA, Antwerp; Pinakothek der Moderne, Munich; Sharjah Art Foundation; The Museum of Modern Art, Warsaw; amongst others.
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