Publishing Expanded: Where Is Africa

Publishing Expanded: Where Is Africa is the first gathering in CARA’s annual, interdisciplinary winter program celebrating the release of the organization’s new and upcoming publications. This inaugural, multi-day program will take place at CARA from February 9–11, 2024 on the occasion of the launch of Where Is Africa, edited by Emanuel Admassu and Anita N. Bateman, designed by NMutiti Studio, with a foreword by Mabel O. Wilson. 

In 2017, curator and art historian Anita N. Bateman and architect and professor Emanuel Admassu initiated research on the traditional (mis)positioning of the arts across the African continent. Where Is Africa has been an extended set of exchanges with contemporary artists, curators, designers and academics who are actively engaged in representing the continent—both within and outside its geographic boundaries. This publication is also a conceptual project that accompanies a conceptual place, driven by the desire to dislodge Africa from categorical fixity and the representational logics of nation-states.

The interviews gathered in this important new volume examine African and African-diasporic identities and spaces in relation to specific disciplinary, cultural, and political contexts. Newly commissioned texts and artworks building upon curatorial, museological, and artistic methodologies that confront epistemologies of dominance and exclusion,addressing Afro-diasporic aesthetic practices.

Where Is Africa contributors include: Mikael Awake, Salome Asega, Tau Tavengwa, Anthony Bogues, Jay Simple, Eric Gottesman, Rebecca Corey, Aida Mulkozi, Rakeb Sile, Mesai Haileleul, Mpho Matsipa, Niama Safia Sandy, Adama Delphine Fawundu, Rehema Chachage, Robel Temesgen, Valerie Amani, Meskerem Assegued, Elias Sime, Olalekan Jeyifous, Amanda Williams, Germane Barnes and Mario Gooden.

To inaugurate CARA’s annual Publishing Expanded winter program, CARA will host a 3-day convening featuring Where Is Africa editors, designer, contributors, and invited guests opening up questions around artistic and literary practice, technology, design and urban planning, and racial logics that guide conversations in the book. Conceived as an opportunity for gathering and dialogue, Publishing Expanded offers a more expansive approach to the “book launch” by fostering conversation and deep engagement with the title through ongoing opportunities for commoning. The program will unfold through discussions, workshops, talks, readings, screenings, performances, and a special bookstore and reading room selection. 

Participants include: Editors Emanuel Admassu and Anita N. Bateman, designer Nontsikelelo Mutiti, contributors Salome Asega, Mikael Awake, Anthony Bogues, Antawan I. Byrd, Rebecca Corey, Mario Gooden, Eric Gottesman, Olalekan Jeyifous, Mabel O. Wilson, Mpho Matsipa, Robel Temesgen, and guest speakers/performers Johann Diedrick, Lamin Fofana, Ekene Ijeoma, Belinda Kazeem-Kaminski, Helina Metaferia, Serubiri Moses, Amandine Nana, Funto Omojola, Matthew Shenoda, Nyugen Smith, Yayra Sumah, Alexander Ghedi Weheliye, Auttrianna Ward, Akeema-Zane and more! 

Publishing Expanded: Where Is Africa will host the Afrophon’ Reading Room organized by Gee Wesley and a selection of titles from the Transplantation collection by Amandine Nana.

Full schedule to be announced. More information here.

Where Is Africa 
Softcover, spiral-bound, 346 pp., 6 x 10 inches
ISBN: 978-1-954939-01-01
Distributed worldwide by DAP
35 USD
Release: February 2024