Samovar Swell is an installation by the collective Slavs and Tatars that proposes a space-time of communion through reading and tea. Activated by performative and sound-based interventions, the project is conceived as a shared and exuberant experience, where multilingualism takes shape through the dramaturgy of translation, different languages, and the resonance of the voice.

At the center of the installation is a samovar—the traditional vessel used to heat and serve tea from Turkey to Russia and Central Asia—which embodies a gesture of hospitality and gathering. The exhibition space will remain in a state of “boil,” both literally and orally. A series of publications will be displayed on rahlé —X-shaped supports traditionally used to hold sacred texts during reading or recitation—alongside kilims to sit on.

Designed to serve tea to a large number of guests, the samovar offers a moment of belonging through a shared ritual: a way of releasing steam in an increasingly heated world; of decompressing, not in diluted form, but infused with discourse and conviviality.

Slavs and Tatars is a collective founded in 2006 whose practice explores the geographic politics and literatures of Eurasia, complicating the ways we understand language, ritual, and identity through publications, installations, and lecture-performances