What could the curriculum be – if it was designed by the people who dropped out of school so that they could breathe? The latest issue of Chimurenga provides alternatives to prevailing educational pedagogy. Through fiction, essays, interviews, poetry, photography and art, contributors examine and redefine rigid notions of essential knowledge.
Presented in the form of a textbook, Chimurenga 15 simultaneously mimics the structure while gutting it. All entries are regrouped under subjects such as body parts, language, grace, worship and news (from the other side), numbers, parents, police and many more. Through a classification system that is both linear and thematic, the textbook offers multiple entry points into a curriculum that focuses on the un-teachable and values un-learning as much as it’s opposite.
Inside: Amiri Baraka waxes poetic on the theoretics of Be-Bop; Coco Fusco flips the CIA’s teaching manual for female torturers; Karen Press and Steve Coleman instruct in folk-dancing; Dambudzo Marechera proposes a “guide to the earth”; Dominique Malaquais designs the museum we won’t build; through self-portraits Phillip Tabane and Johnny Dyani offer method to the Skanga (black music family); and Winston Mankunku refuses to teach.
Other contributors include Binyavanga Wainaina, Akin Adesokan, Isoje Chou, Sean O’Toole, Pradid Krishen, E.C. Osundu, Salim Washington, Sefi Atta, Ed Pavlic, Neo Muyanga, Henri-Michel Yere, Medu Arts Ensemble, Aryan Kaganof, Khulile Nxumalo and Walter Mosley amongst others. Cover by Johnny “Mbizo” Dyani.
How to Maneuver: Shapeshifting texts and Other Publishing Tactics Edited by Kayfa ta (Kayfa ta, 2020)
The research and series of exhibitions that this publication grew out of, is part of an ongoing project exploring the significant work of individuals, collectives and institutions in the field of alternative art and publishing practices, past and present.
Contributors: Ahmad Makia, Ali Eyal, Ali Hussein Al-Adawy, Ali Yass, Andrew Murphie, Bady Dalloul, Barakunan, Bernhard Cella, Elaine W. HO., Faisal Al Hassan, Farah Khelil & antoine lefebvre editions, Fehras Publishing Practices, Giulia Crispiani & Federico Antonini, Hala Bizri & Jana Traboulsi, Haytham el-Wardany, Huda Smitshuijzen AbiFarèd, Hussein Nassereddine, Jabbour Douaihy, Jaffat El Aqlam, Khalid Albudoor & Nujoom Alghanem with Rand Abdul Jabbar & Uns Kattan & Hammad Nasar, Moad Musbahi, Noopur Desai, Raafat Majzoub, Yazan Ashqar.