Emblematic Elusions is an educational chapbook series portraying how African filmmakers redefine the Black form in the visual field from the wounded signifier to an embodied vessel for liberation. Each edition presents a film essay analyzing a significant Black African movie.
A focus on the question of Eros in African cinema provides an intuitive opening for larger discourses on the erotics of history, (post)colonialism, migration, diaspora, socio-economic dynamics, and (post)nationalism. African auteurs [re]position the nude Black female form from a wounded canvas to challenging, exposing, sensitizing, and healing the qualms of the African societies these films represent. Considering the historicity of visual consumption of the nude Black body, the series centers the power of the moving image to bridge the dialectics of visual pleasure and sexual pleasure. Indeed, “African culture is more discreet, less externalized, more modest and restrained. Every disclosure of the matter is a violation of the matter. In this sense, cinema is transgression.” (Folly, 1996) Considering cinema’s inherent ability - and burden, to an extent - of making matter seen- such a dichotomy allows for complex yet invigorating discourse.
This series is an accessible rendition of the author’s thesis,
Within Double Restraint: The Dialectics & Aesthetics of Erotic [Re]presentation in African Cinema
Ask for a copy...
AFRICA
Cape Town, ZA
Paper Café
Nairobi, KE
NORTH AMERICA
Manhattan, NY
Anteism Books
︎Publishing House & Bindery
Montréal, QC
Charlot Abhors A Void
Manhattan, NY
Human Relations
Bushwick, BK
READ Books - Emily Carr University
Vancouver, BC
Ulises Books
Philly, PA
EUROPE
︎ UK & EU Distributor
London, UK
Artwords Bookshop
London, UK
Eyefilmmuseum
Amsterdam, Netherlands
Hordaland Art Centre
Bergen, Norway
magCulture
London, UK
Magma
London, UK
Tenderbooks
London, UK
Transplantation Project
Paris, FR
Unique Magazines
Newcastle Upon Tyne, UK
Yvon Lambert
Paris, FR
Exhibited during...
Printed Matter’s LA Art Book Fair
May 2025
Los Angeles, CA
Black Zine Fair
May 2024 - May 2025
Brooklyn, NY
Book Arts Solidarity Network
Brooklyn Art Book Fair
September 2024
Brooklyn, NY
Printed Matter’s NY Art Book Fair
April 2024
Manhattan, NY
MissRead
October 2024
Berlin, Germany
Artch Festival October 2024
Montréal, QC
Press Play Book Fair December 2024
Brooklyn, NY
