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.
An anthology of 14 texts that were originally published on the website of the Africa South Art Initiative. Texts focus on significant bodies of work and critical themes integral to the practice of particular artists, foregrounding the work of artists and writers in engaging with many of the pressing concerns of the postcolonial present. Includes introductory essay, bibliography, index, colour illus. (115), 208pp.
Editor/s: Mario Pissarra, with Thulile Gamedze, Fiona Mauchan and Keely Shinners.
Authors: Candice Allison, Thulile Gamedze, Candice Jansen, Stefanie Jason, M. Neelika Jayawardene, Thelma Mort, Sihle Motsa, Sibongile Oageng Msimango, Mario Pissarra, Khumo Sebambo, Keely Shinners, Lena Sulik, Elize van Huyssteen, Lize van Robbroeck.
Featured artists: Nirveda Alleck, Shelley Barry, Lizette Chirrime, Peter Clarke, Garth Erasmus, Gabrielle Goliath, Ann Gollifer, Randolph Hartzenberg, Lizza Littlewort, Nomusa Makhubu, Tuli Mekondjo, Cedric Nunn, Helena Uambembe, Mduduzi Xakaza.
Publisher: ASAI, March 2026
ISBN: ISBN 978-0-620-93854-9