Publishing Practices and Disparate Design: Transcending and Transforming the Book with African (Con)texts, with Luvuyo Equiano Nyawose, Kennedy Jones, Gee Wesley, and Nontsikelelo Mutiti

Artist and curator Luvuyo Equiano Nyawose, curator and cultural organizers Kennedy Jones and Gee Wesley, and artist and designer Nontsikelelo Mutiti discuss publishing as an alternative space for curatorial, editorial, and artistic discourse within the context of Black and African cultural production.

This conversation explores how narrative formations from across the continent and the diaspora beckon us to think differently about publishing as it relates to translation, production, dissemination, and genre, and about how libraries and archives can create spaces of resistance, refuge, and channels for histories that center erased narratives. The conversation highlights two recent publications: eBhish' (Archive Books) and Where Is Africa (CARA).

eBhish' is a multilingual and multi-genre response to Nyawose's photographic meditations on Black social life, leisure, and public communion under siege. Where Is Africa, edited by Emanuel Admassu and Anita N. Bateman, and designed by NMutiti Studio, is a set of exchanges with contemporary artists, curators, designers, and academics actively engaged in representing the continent—both within and outside its geographic boundaries.

Presented by Archive Books and Center for Art, Research and Alliances (CARA).

This event is part of the Printed Matter's NY Art Book Fair Classroom program, co-organized by CARA's Curator of Public Programs and Bookstore, Emmy Catedral and SFMOMA's Director of Library, David Senior.