Every so often, curiosity gets the better of us, and we want to peer into the lives of others. So we reached out to artists, curators and practitioners at large to find out what books are keeping them busy this season. Here is what they had to say.
Olga Speakes, director at The AVA Gallery in Cape Town, recommended Arundhati Roy’s ‘Mother Mary Comes to Me ’, an honest and insightful read into Roy’s life. Speakes is also inspired by a planned trip to Uzbekistan, the heart of the Silk Route trade, which will see her explore textile and fibre-based art. To enrich these experiences, she’s taking along ‘The Golden Thread: How Fabric Changed History’ by Kassia St. Clair. Her last recommendation is Vladimir Nabokov’s ‘Letters to Vera’, edited by Olga Slonim and Brian Boyd. The book tells the story of a lifelong romance, the detritus of daily life and the experience of exile through personal correspondence by one of Russia’s most recognised literary giants.
Senior Director at Goodman Gallery, Jo Stella-Sawicka, enjoyed reading ‘Carrie Mae Weems: The Heart of the Matter’, edited by Sarah Meister, to accompany Carrie Mae Weems’ touring Aperture show. Including texts by friends, family, and colleagues from Dawoud Bey, Professor Deborah Willis, Elvira Dyangani Ose and Jeffrey Hoone, the book provides an intimate and insightful view of the artist’s four-decade-long career.
Another art book recommendation came from George Mahashe (associate professor at the Michaelis School of Fine Art, University of Cape Town) in the form of a scienticity reader of artistic, philosophical, theoretical moves on the epistemic instruments, ‘Matter Mattering Matters’. Edited by Kabelo Malatsie & Lantian Xie, the book brings together contributions by Karen Barad, Simnikiwe Buhlungu, Nolan Oswald Dennis, Rohini Devasher & Sabih Ahmed, Merve Ertufan, Ivana Franke, Jackie Karuti, George Mahashe, Sidony O’Neal, Raqs Media Collective, Oscar Santillan, Bogosi Sekhukhuni, and Aarti Sunder. Mahashe also recommended ‘Camera Geologica: An Elemental History of Photography’ by Siobhan Angus and Vusamazulu Credo Mutwa’s ‘Zulu Shaman: Dreams, Prophecies, and Mysteries’ as being top of his list.
Curator, researcher and editor Nisha Merit’s list was wide-ranging, including a historical novel ‘The Art of Joy’ written by Goliarda Sapienza; ‘Freshwater’, the autobiographical fiction novel by Akwaeke Emezi; Olga Tokarczuk’s novel about travel, human anatomy, life, death, motion, migration, ‘Flights’; ‘Land of Milk and Honey’ by C Pam Zhang as well as a book that was recommended to her that she just started reading; ‘Mating’ by Norman Rush.
Last but not least, we asked interdisciplinary artist Lerato Shadi what is on her list. She shared a picture with a table full of interesting titles, including ‘Xala’ – a satirical novel by Senegalese writer and filmmaker Ousmane Sembène, Zoe Wicomb’s ‘David’s Story’, Bessie Head’s semi-autobiographical classic ‘A Question of Power’, Shannon Chakraborty’s ‘The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi’, ‘Decolonising Methodologies’ by Linda Tuhiwai Smith, David Diop’s International Booker Prize winning ‘At Night All Blood is Black’ and ‘Unwinding Threads: Writing by Women in Africa’ edited by Charlotte H. Brunner.
