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Slavs and Tatars describe the Pickle Bar initiative as a ‘sensation-zone of a pickle in a mouth and bring together other artists, thinkers, writers, investigating and animating the area between langue & tongue and the roof of the mouth which cut across the spoken word, poetry, voice; the politics, materiality, and volatility of languages & tongues; as well as actions of tasting, swallowing, and vocalizing’.

This Pickle Bar rendition is situated in West Den Haag, the premises of the former American Embassy, the epitome and a symbol of the West. I can’t help but think of the significance of Slavs and Tatars’ re-centering in this location. It adds another layer to the conversation. Their ongoing aim to make a space for multi-dimensional and multi-perspective gaze to the histories and socio-political contexts of the vast region starting from Berlin wall to the Great Wall of China can only be commendable. The approach is unapologetic and not overly didactic, their work doesn’t try to explain everything in an easily digestible way to the viewer. The point is not to make art or show artists’ work that can be consumed, it is rather to make a space of mutual exchange and to include as many sides of the same story as possible as a way to find unexpected points of connection and relation, and by doing so to develop an entirely different system of knowledge production.

As I move around, I notice a fridge stocked with bottles of pickle brine labeled Brine and Punishment — in reference to Dostoyevsky’s Crime and Punishment — (Brine and Punishment, 2019-ongoing, Slavs and Tatars) and a QR code to pay, with a smirk on my face I grab myself a bottle and enter the next room.

As I walk around the exhibition looking for some underlying thread or focus, I realise that there isn’t one. Rather, there are multiple threads: multiple urgencies and histories intertwined and allowed to exist in this symbiotic fashion, or, one might say to allowed to brew. Frustrated at first, I realise that the seemingly incoherent plurality has a purpose. As I walk from room to room where I am faced with powerful works taking and reflecting on urgent subjects, I imagine an entirely different spatial design – one where the different rooms are entered directly from the Dillio Plaza in all directions, making the brine fountain the centre of these conversations where one would talk about multiple sociopolitical and historical topics much like it would happen at a bar. Except unlike a conventional bar where people would discuss recent news headlines, there is an attempt to re-center or to realign away from the Western gaze or latest Western media buzz.

As I notice an Eastern Union sign (Eastern Union, 2022 Nikolay Karabinovicy) shining above me in the hallway, I continue. This is East looking towards itself, rather than seeking a western opinion, it is looking without translating everything to the western gaze. The are certainly themes that that repeat themselves – identity vocabularies of LGBTQ+ communities is a big one, especially emphasising queer identity within conservative environments: from addressing the heart-wrenching struggles that come with an identity of being openly queer and trans and showing this side of an identity to a conservative Polish family (Filipka, 2023, Filipka Rutkowska) to the repercussions of showing one’s (image) representation in a conservative Islamic environment within an online landscape (Love & Revenge, 2021, Anhar Salem). This is presented alongside an enquiry into restriction and freedom in the construction of identity and gender stereotypes via garments, costumes, and work uniforms (Embodiment, 2021, Giulia Cretulescu, 2021; SAMAIA, 2023, Shalva Nikashvili, Gloves, 2018, Olga Micińska). The works speak of looking beyond the binary. Both in terms of gender identity and in terms of Eastern / Western divide.

Another theme that is present in the show is the skepticism of the vision of the West as the only  place with a sense of hope and peace, or a location where reaching a peaceful agreement is seemingly possible. This is seen in Can we avoid another war? artwork [Nikolay Karabinovych, Can we avoid another war?, 2022] which is mockingly asking a question with an answer that is currently unfolding before our eyes and with a ‘NO’ written in a felt-tip pen over the article printed on paper of the speculative and hopeful speech by Paul Kronacker  at The Belgian Chamber of Commerce in the US in 1948.  This installation of works is leading to another space named the Hope Hotel [Bojan Stojčić, Hope Hotel Phantom, 2023] an immersive installation with a film showing a revisit of the hotel with the same title, it is a fictional replay of events juxtaposed with footage of the peace treaty signing by leaders of Bosnia & Herzegovina, Croatia & Serbia who met in Dayton, Ohio, USA. This peace agreement would end four violent years of war in Bosnia & Herzegovina in 1995. While it ended the war, it also trapped the country in an unchangeable quasi-democratic state. The room itself does not feel you with hope, but rather with a mild sense of dread. This aside, it creates a contemplative space for questioning the role and agenda of the West in peacekeeping.

The abundance of interwoven themes continues throughout the exhibition as well as the public events programme that took place alongside the exhibition. One such event was a dinner: Digestive System of Humanity, organised Goda Paleikate and Jonas Palekas. Here on the cusp of fictional and non-fictional space of a reading group dinner, the participants took on roles to read a script out loud where assigned characters talked about their myriad of frustrations together in a space. After each act we took breaks for different courses of an unapologetic menu consisting of daring combinations of flavours and ingredients to add another layer to the proverbial ‘pickling’.

This show demands a lot from the viewer, it is not easily digestible, no matter how much of the lacto-fermented goodness of bottled pickle juice you drink at the bar. It makes you question, ponder and find surprising connections and parallels, it’s a show that leaves you asking for more information and wanting to do more research into each of the subjects. This is where its real strength lies, it is exactly in the syncretism that is present in the exhibition and in the ongoing work of Slavs and Tatars. May this ongoing fermentation continue!