An ongoing nomadic project started in 2018 against the backdrop of rave culture, in collaboration with the artist Dasha Mamba. Essentially, it is a pop-up cafe (executed over a hundred times), with its menu structured around tea and coffee and designed as a way to connect with yourself and thoughtfully relive the rave experience—concentrated, exalted, and perhaps even aggressive.
Tea and coffee act as conduits into a particular state of caring and adjust the focus of the guest’s attention. Apart from her interaction with taste, the artist also uses aromas, sounds, textures, and visuals to create the tea-and-coffee room space in order to engage all the senses and immerse the viewer deeper into the moment. The room is a fluid space—more of a feeling than an environment. It fits into the context of a particular place and event, absorbs it and, with it, comes to an end, only to reveal itself next time in another guise at another event.
Together with a cup of tea or coffee, the artist suggests a complex experience, through which one connects first with oneself, and then adjusts the focus to the surrounding reality..
t room, Venice, 2025.
“t room” was held at the opening of an exhibition in Venice by invitation of the curators, as a way to shift the habitual gallery dynamics and to involve visitors in a shared experience of exhibition time. The tea ceremony functioned as a form of participation, transforming visitors from observers into participants of the unfolding moment.
Situated alongside video works and meditative music, the tea gathering, rooted in Uzbek tradition, shaped a multi-layered sensory experience. Steam, aroma, taste, utensils, and shared gestures redirected attention toward embodied presence, allowing the exhibition to be experienced not only visually, but through sound, smell, taste, and time.
Elidium festival, Portugal, 2025
during elidium festival, “t room” emerged in the forest as a pop-up coffee camp, appearing twice during the festival day. without signs or formal boundaries, it gathered on a round wooden platform, where fabric, objects, and utensils formed a place for pause and recovery within the active rhythm of the festival.
the duration of “t room” was defined by the length of a set of five cassette tapes, selected specifically for that day. coffee was brewed in a pour-over while the tapes were playing, and guests were invited to slow down, sit, look at the forest, and engage with objects created for tactile experience — until the final cassette ended and “t room” completed its work.