“…The struggle of black people inevitably appear in an intensely cultural form because the social formation in which their distinct political traditions are now manifest has constructed the arena of politics on ground overshadowed by centuries of metropolitan capitalist development, thereby denying them recognition as legitimate politics. Blacks conduct a class struggle in and through race. The BC of race and class cannot be empirically separated, the class character of black struggles is not a result of the fact that blacks are predominantly proletarian, thought this is true…”- (Frank Talk Staff Writers in ‘Azania Salutes Tosh’ – circa 1981)
front cover:
Tosh by Steve Gordon
back cover:
Kippie by Basil Breakey
A Story of Nothingness by Fulufhelo Mobadi (Arak Collection, 2025)
Into the nothingness: The Strangeness of Seeing, What Blinds our Being was curated by Fulufhelo Mobadi in 2020. Fulufhelo Mobadi is a South African photographer and curator. She was the second ARAK Collection 2020 Curatorial Residency Fellowship Recipient. Into the Nothingness: The Strangeness of Seeing, What Blinds our Being brings to the fore the entanglements of historical, physical, metaphysical and existential spheres of contemporary African lives. Through the distorted faces, fragmented landscapes and clear references to the dark memories that travel with us in sometimes nightmarish visions, are traces of knowledge systems that seem to explore these spheres of existence through artworks that cover cultural identities, different beliefs, cultural practices, mythologies and cosmologies. The publication allow one to visualize, respond to and create dialog around the complexities that inspire African artists to create work that speak of their beliefs, thoughts, histories and their futures as well as the rich and complex traditions in a contemporary world.