Pickle Bar Podcast

In this podcast an artist, Fai Ahmed, as a part of her residency-mentorship program at Slavs and Tatars, invites a music researcher Amal Mohammed to reflect on Saudi underground music. While Fai Ahmed talks about her new research, which explores the realm of the local underground music scene and its intricate ties to cultural memory and Hauntology. Together with Amal Mohammed they talk about the h...

In this intimate podcast, Irena Klepfisz talks about her new book, creativity and resistance, coming out, and her experience of being a lesbian Jew in New York in the 70s and 80s. Through her exclusive conversation with Ula Chowaniec, she shares personal memories and touches upon the lesbian activist and literally movements of her time, how political urgencies shaped her thinking, her relationship...

In this podcast, St. Julian-Varnon expands on her current academic work, which focuses on the study of the black diaspora in the Soviet Union and the analysis of the influence of the ideological narrative on the Soviet citizens' perceptions of Africans into children's books. Together with Dora Vasilakou, Julian Varnon spoke about the main characteristics of the Soviet children's books before and a...

The colonial education system, led by the ambitions of the Russian Empire (among other European states) in the 19th century, as well as the “secular” pedagogy under the scope of nation-building during the USSR era in the 20th century, contributed to educational reforms imposed on territories inhabited predominantly by Muslim populations. The lecture “Child education as a strategy of decolonization...

A short history of being a child during the soviet time. This podcast looks at the condition of children during the Soviet revolution in the first half of the 20th century. After the 1917 Revolution, the newly soviet system was created to educate a new generation of “comrades'' supposed to be more tolerant and respectful toward others. Research Lisa Kirschenbaum calls for a history written from th...

On the Arabic writing system’s special features and its challenging encounters with the digital realm. The Arabic Script is essential to Islam and Muslim life. Not only is it the script of a scripture, the holy Qur’an. Itself, as a script, is considered holy and believed to carry great powers. Out of this special place in Islam superb artistic skills in calligraphy have been developed. Islamic cal...

The podcast is the second in a series of events devoted to exploring Black identity in Central Asia, the Middle East and Eastern Europe by Slavs and Tatars' Pickle Bar. In "Writing Ourselves into Existence” by the Collective for Black Iranians, founding members of the Collective, Pardis Nkoy, Parisa Nkoy, Alex Eskanarkhah, Priscillia Kounkou-Hoveyda, resident artists, Pegah Bahadori as well as res...

Prof. Dr. Elmira Gyul is a doctor in art history, professor, and leading researcher at the institute of art studies at the Academy of Science of the Republic of Uzbekistan. She is the author of seven monographs and over 200 articles in art history and contemporary art in Central Asia. A special place in Elmira Gyul research is occupied by the history of textiles. She has published two monographs o...

Combining hearsays, histories and speculations, Dr. Mi You talk focus on silk both as an artefact and as cultural metaphor. Desired by the Romans, silk in the antiquity was surrounded by trickery, theft and outlandish cultural imaginations, so popular that it was preferred as a medium of exchange in Central Asia than gold coins issued by the Kushan empire. In China, silk was variously used in lieu...

About being a punk rocker in Bosnia and Herzegovina and suddenly a refugee in Germany. As well as everything before, around and after that. With Tijan Sila, a rising star of German literature, whose third novel "Krach" has been trending all throughout the year 2021. Moderated by Hana Ćurak (Sve su to vještice), a former Pickle Bar resident. This podcast is produced in connection with Slavs and Tat...

„Wo kommst du her?“ - „Nein wirklich, wo kommst du ursprünglich her?“ - „Wo kommen deine Eltern her?“ [Antwort] „Ohhh exotisch!!“ - „Kenn ich nicht…“ - „Ah, dachte du wärst aus [anderes Land mit größtenteils dunkelhaariger Bevölkerung]!“ Jeder*jedem sollten diese Konversationen bekannt vorkommen - ob als diejenige Person, die die Fragen stellt oder diejenige, die sie ständig beantworten muss. Oder...

Drawing on the daoist philosophy of xing (性) (nature/sexuality), hexie (和谐) (harmony) and tianren heyi (天人合) (the unity between the human world and the non-human world), the lecture Metamorphosis of A Butterfly: Queer Art and Activism in Contemporary China by Dr. Hongwei Bao looks at queer art beyond Western queer theory, modern gay identity, from indigenous and ancient perspectives and addr...

The first episode of Pickle Bar Podcast introduces Zavier Wingham’s lecture “A Brief History of the African Diaspora in the Ottoman Empire and Modern Turkey”. The podcast is the first in a series exploring various articulations of Black identity in Central Asia, Caucasus and Eastern Europe as an attempt to complicate the Atlanticist notion of race most of us are familiar with. The lecture was held...