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.
Lovedale Press
Lovedale Press is a small South African publishing house with roots dating back to 1823. It began at the Gwali Mission—also known as Chumie or Tyumie—located in the Tyume Valley near present-day Alice (now Dikeni) in the Eastern Cape. That same year, John Bennie, a skilled linguist from the Glasgow Missionary Society, was joined by John Ross, who brought with him the Ruthven Printing Press.
In December 1823, they printed the first words in isiXhosa. The press was used by the church to publish texts that reflected Scottish missionary ideals, aiming to promote education, spiritual growth, and the development of local communities.
Lovedale Press became a major publisher in Southern Africa, known for its production of literature in isiXhosa and other Southern African languages, as well as works in English.
Foundation and Purpose: "Victory of the Word" (VOW) was founded in 2020 by curator Anelisa Mangcu and artist Athi-Patra Ruga as a response to the challenges facing the Lovedale Press, a 200 year old printing press with a rich history of publishing Black writers and literature.
