Patricia Azevedo and Clare Charnley collection

Sabrina Strings weaves together an eye-opening historical narrative ranging from the Renaissance to the current moment, analyzing important works of art, newspaper and magazine articles, and scientific literature and medical journals–where fat bodies were once praised–showing that fat phobia, as it relates to black women, did not originate with medical findings, but with the Enlightenment era belief that fatness was evidence of “savagery” and racial inferiority.
Fearing the Black Body argues that the contemporary ideal of slenderness is, at its very core, racialized and racist. An important and original work, it reveals that fat phobia isn’t about health at all, but rather a means of using the body to validate race, class, and gender prejudice.

Sonia Boyce (b.1962) is a groundbreaking artist whose practice is founded on taking creative risks. Unafraid to play against set expectations about how art should behave, her collaborative interactions between audience and performer enable spontaneous and intimate social encounters, resulting in the creation of work that is simultaneously self-aware, visceral and open-ended.

This book is a much-anticipated introduction to the life and work of this extraordinary artist. Touching on her engagement with the work of other feminist artists and her time as a leading figure in the 1980s Black British Art movement, it contextualizes Boyce’s journey from her early pastel drawings and collages to her pivotal shift to film, sound, and performance art. Highlighting her artistic innovation as she experiments with medium to explore and question culture, identity and the boundaries between the public and private spheres in unexpected ways, it celebrates the visionary practice of a truly uncompromising artist.

What is performance? 31 performative programs to confuse the question.

Both in English and Spanish.

“Iniciando em 29 de novembro de 2022 e indo até 08 de dezembro do mesmo ano, o Festival que teve curadoria geral de Eduardo Bruno e curadoria adjunta de Aires Furtado, Marie Auip e Walídrio Castro, contou com uma programaçao realizado após uma ressaca de alegria e desgaste em decorrência do período eleitoral que acabava de se encerrar no Brasil. Esse livro, é parte desse processo, não é um resumo, muito menos outras partes que compuseram o Festival em sua 4ª edição e ainda continuam se desdobrando. Esperamos que esse livro conecte ao seu desejo de esperançar e construir outros modos de aglomereção e comunidades. Que o corpo se movimente e que o desejo ganhe novas vazões, bom proveito.”

This publication is in Portuguese (Brasil).

Este livro é composto de narrativas simbólicas construídas por diferentes mulheres, tendo como disparador criativo as memórias e vivências da orla e da cidade de Fortaleza. Suas palavras presentificam a forma como o corpo e a subjetividade feminina constituem historicidades para além das impostas sócio-historicamente. Mergulhar nele é entrar em outros mares.

This publication is in Portuguese (Brasil)

A 5ª edição do Festival Imaginários Urbanos foi uma realizaçao da Plataforma Imaginários com apoio institucional do Instituto Juvenude Inovaçao, Rede Juv, Instituto Mirante de Cultura e Arte, Pinacoteca do Ceará, Estação das Artes, Instituto Dragão do Mar, Theatro José de Alencar, CineTeatro São Luiz, Hub Cultural Porto Dragão, Centro Cultural Dragão do Mar, além do parceria com Espaço Chão, Bela Maré e Observatório de Favelas.

This publication is in Portuguese (Brasil).

O Festival Imaginários Urbanos é uma realizaçao da Plataforma Imaginários, com apoio da Secretaria da Cultura do Estado do Ceará e do Ministério da Cultura, utilizando recursos da Lei Paulo Gustavo (Lei Complementar n. 195/2022).

This publication is in Portuguese (Brasil).

The global crisis of our time involves a complex of ecological, economic, technological and migratory challenges that no state is able to control. The result is a provincialisation of our democracies with respect to the new planetary powers confronting humanity. It is from this that our increasingly impotent and rabid politics stems.  Paradoxical as it may seem, it is precisely the decline of the nation-state that is the source of the great nationalist uprising of our time.

We need a new planetary vision that is able to reclaim and liberate our world, starting today and engaging each of us. This is the task of philosophy as much as it is of politics, of theory as it is of activism. Connecting with a new generation taking to the streets across the globe, this book tells the story of the ever-closer union of our world, from the age of empire to the climate crisis, and presents a plea and a roadmap to step beyond the mental and material boundaries of our nations.

Jacques Derrida deftly guides us through an extended meditation on remembrance, religion, time, and technology-fruitfully occasioned by a deconstructive analysis of the notion of archiving. Intrigued by the evocative relationship between technologies of inscription and psychic processes, Derrida offers for the first time a major statement on the pervasive impact of electronic media, particularly e-mail, which threaten to transform the entire public and private space of humanity. Plying this rich material with characteristic virtuosity, Derrida constructs a synergistic reading of archives and archiving, both provocative and compelling.

Playing Public: Performing Participation with Pens, Planes, and People is an A5 format artist/research publication and project archive focusing on participatory game Flight Club and the years that preceded its creation. Charting my participatory art journey from prior experiments and involvement with community groups and public-facing, performative events leading up to the production of Flight Club and its iterations, written and photographic documentation combine to show how this game emerged and developed through participation, community and open-source collaboration.

Before we begin to practice self-design, we find ourselves already designed by the gaze of others. That is why the practice of self-design mostly takes a critical and confrontational turn. We want to bring others to see us in the way we want to be seen – not only during our earthly life but also after our death. This is a complicated struggle, and the aim of this book is to describe and analyze it.

Dinner with America is the second in a trilogy of performance installations addressing the complexities of cultural identity in the 21st Century. Where the first piece in the trilogy, Mr Quiver (Nuffield Autumn 07), explored Indian and English stereotypes, this piece questions what America means to us.

As the performance space shifts and transforms around the audience, it gently uncovers themes of consumerism, rights, ownership, voices, hopes, harvest and division in a visually compelling and unusual piece of work.

This booklet was published in November 2008 to accompany the touring production of Dinner with America by Rajni Shah Theatre. All images, films and texts were made during and as part of the creative process. They are designed to illuminate both the core and outlying ideas that inhabited the artists’ thinking at the time of making the show, between February 2007 and November 2008.