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 allows for an intuitive opening for larger discourses of the erotics of history, (post)colonialism, migration and 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.

Stockists

52 Walker Library

Manhattan, NY   

Edition I ︎ Edition II

Antenne Books

UK & EU Distributor

Edition I ︎ Edition II

BookThug Nation

Williamsburg, BK

Charlot Abhors A Void

Manhattan, NY

Human Relations
Bushwick, BK

magCulture
London, UK

READ Books - Emily Carr University

Vancouver, BC

Edition I

Transplantation Project
Paris, FR

Unique Magazines
Newcastle Upon Tyne, UK
Edition II

As exhibited during...

Black Zine Fair- May 2024
Brooklyn, NY

New York 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