Tis (they/them, b. 1975) & Vitaly (he/him, b. 1994) are a parent-and-son artist duo based in New York and Brussels, working at the intersection of photography, textile art, and mixed-media installation, as well as in academic research as archeologists of contemporary living spaces.

Tis & Vitaly’s work is informed by the world of Franco-Belgian comics and experimental literature, by their academic background in design and urban studies, and by their Eastern European and Central Asian heritage.

Tis & Vitaly’s artistic practice has its roots in late-20th-century photographie plasticienne, which apprehends image as a nexus of physical and digital interventions, ranging from building studio installations designed to be photographed, to intervening in the image and on and around its physical support. Gradually their approach has evolved into a textile and object design practice, where the poetry of spaces, gestures, and objects is deployed across surfaces and materials with a nonlinear sense of narrativity.

Tis & Vitaly’s work has been exhibited at museums, galleries, and art fairs across the world, including the National Museum of Unity in Nigeria, the MORA Museum of Art in New Jersey, USA, the Kigali Centre for Photography in Rwanda, Galerie Mhaata in Brussels, Galerie Mitobo in New York, and Lausanne Art Fair in Switzerland. Their work is on display in private collections in Europe, Africa, the USA, and Mexico.

Tis & Vitaly are members of the international network of contemporary archeologists CHAT (Contemporary & Historical Archaeology in Theory). Their research on the archeology of rural Rwandan farmhouses is forthcoming, published by Bloomsbury in a volume on the new interdisciplinary field of household archeology. Their research on abandoned Polish apartments is also forthcoming, published by Springer in a volume on the archeology of repression and resistance. Tis’s books are published by Punctum Books. Tis holds a law degree from Stanford University, masters in linguistics from Stanford and music composition from the University of London, and has taught transdiciplinary design at Parsons School of Design in New York, and early music at the Royal Conservatoire in The Hague. Vitaly holds a master in urbanism and geography from the Free University of Brussels and a bachelor in philology from the University of Silesia.