A Spectral Path in the Azure or Testimonies about Tea
Hayward Gallery invited poet Anuar Duisenbinov to develop a poetic response to the artwork Samovar (2021) by Slavs and Tatars, exploring the history and legacy of tea in Central Asia.
Born in 1985, Duisenbinov is a Kazakh poet and translator and member of the bULt art group. He also co-authored the Spoken Word Project ‘Balkhash Dreams’. His response to Samovar, is titled ‘A Spectral Path in the Azure or Testimonies about Tea’.
To write this poem, Duisenbinov invited members of the art community in Kazakhstan, which includes Kazakhs, Koreans, Tatars, Russians, Dungans and Uighurs, to share personal memories and traditions relating to tea culture. Using these stories as inspiration, he then crafted poetic retellings of the stories, each different in perspective, structure and tone.
Here we present audio excerpts from Duisenbinov’s poem.
To read ‘A Spectral Path in the Azure or Testimonies about Tea’ in full, you can view or download a PDF of the complete poem.