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                   Emblematic Elusions II
                   Emblematic Elusions I
                   afila.si
                   Marginalia
                
2019-2022
Co-Founder/Editor - afila.si Digital Library
     

Black Experience isn’t a Spectacle Catalogue (2022)





                                 
                             

                                                                                                                                                       
        
Edited by: Afi Venessa              
Designed by: Jesse Katabarwa              
Published by: Anteism Books              
Photo documentation: Maiko Rodrig              

Carrying titles :              
Chinua Achebe, Maya Angelou, Tanella Boni, Aimé Césaire, Léon-Gontran Damas, Kodwo Eshun, Stuart Hall, bell hooks, Langston Hughes, Ruth Mayer, Robyn Maynard, V.Y. Mudimbe, Jean-Paul Sartre, Binyavanga Wainana, Derek Walcott                  

Includes artist’s works :            
Christian Boakye-Agyeman, ibiyanε Élodie Dérond & Tania Doumbe Fines, Daouda Ka, Jesse Katabarwa, Karl Obakeng, Ouri, Sona Sadio, Tati au Miel 



Co-founded by Afi Venessa & Jesse Katabarwa (2019) , afila.si [æfilæsi] is a collective digital library anchored in Afro-centered perspectives of history, with aims to fortify the accessibility of its cultural and intellectual productions.

BLACK EXPERIENCE ISN’T A SPECTACLE is a referential catalogue offering a compilation of poetry, essays and visual art works edited by Afi Venessa.

Based on its eponymous exhibition which explored the legacy of the voyeuristic gaze in representations of the Black body, it intends to exist as a restorative gesture against the erasure of the Afrocentric perspective in [art] history.

Combining the spatial elements of a visual art gallery and a reading room, afila.si and Anteism Books invited their visitors to engage with individuals of African descent through the productions of our minds, our nuances and our non-monolithic approaches - not the visualization of our bodies. This is expressed through a library curated by Afi Venessa , as well as artworks by Jesse Katabarwa using image and literary sequencing as a means to generate and excavate living narratives. These works are to be consumed through embodiment with ibiyanε, a collection of sculptural chairs embedded in Sub-Saharan African reflections of physicality by Tania Doumbe Fines and Élodie Dérond.

Notable features:
- selected Special Project by Printed Matter Inc. - New Arts Dealers Association (NADA) Miami Art Basel 2021
- Winner of MobileCoin Art Prize - San Francisco 2021
- Exhibition space at Printed Matter Inc. New York Art Book Fair 2022
- selected for Afrikana Film Festival  - Richmond, Virginia 2022


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