The Afronauts

Photographer Cristina De Middel (1975, Spain) chose as the starting point for her project The Afronauts a little-known episode from Zambia's history. This was a space programme started by an educator which suddenly entered Zambia in the space race with the United States and Russia. Its aim was to put the first African on the moon. Due to a lack of financial resources, however, the ambitious initiative was doomed to failure. Fifty years later, De Middel reconstructs this story, using her own imagination. In The Afronauts, De Middel combines set-up photography with copies of typed letters and reproductions of vintage photos. Although The Afronauts is in fact based on a failed undertaking, the project includes nothing that refers to the failure - to the contrary. The photos have an upbeat look thanks to De Middels's fanciful space suits, playful astronaut training sessions and a Zambian flag with a smiley face. Other characters also appear against the background of the rugged landscape of Alicante, including an elephant presented as a space creature and a cat dressed in a starred costume, which according to the story also was planned to be launched into space.

Photographer Cristina De Middel (1975, Spain) chose as the starting point for her project The Afronauts a little-known episode from Zambia's history. This was a space programme started by an educator which suddenly entered Zambia in the space race with the United States and Russia. Its aim was to put the first African on the moon. Due to a lack of financial resources, however, the ambitious initiative was doomed to failure. Fifty years later, De Middel reconstructs this story, using her own imagination. In The Afronauts, De Middel combines set-up photography with copies of typed letters and reproductions of vintage photos. Although The Afronauts is in fact based on a failed undertaking, the project includes nothing that refers to the failure - to the contrary. The photos have an upbeat look thanks to De Middels's fanciful space suits, playful astronaut training sessions and a Zambian flag with a smiley face. Other characters also appear against the background of the rugged landscape of Alicante, including an elephant presented as a space creature and a cat dressed in a starred costume, which according to the story also was planned to be launched into space.

Following the huge success of Swimming Pool, Mária returns with a new collection of her photography in a limited edition book.

"A dazzling debut, establishing Namwali Serpell as a writer on the world stage."--Salman Rushdie, The New York Times Book Review Longlisted for the Center for Fiction First Novel Prize - "Clear-eyed, energetic and richly entertaining."--The Washington Post NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY The New York Times Book Review - Time - Tordotcom - Kirkus Reviews - BookPage 1904. On the banks of the Zambezi River, a few miles from the majestic Victoria Falls, there is a colonial settlement called The Old Drift. In a smoky room at the hotel across the river, an Old Drifter named Percy M. Clark, foggy with fever, makes a mistake that entangles the fates of an Italian hotelier and an African busboy. This sets off a cycle of unwitting retribution between three Zambian families (black, white, brown) as they collide and converge over the course of the century, into the present and beyond. As the generations pass, their lives--their triumphs, errors, losses and hopes--emerge through a panorama of history, fairytale, romance and science fiction. From a woman covered with hair and another plagued with endless tears, to forbidden love affairs and fiery political ones, to homegrown technological marvels like Afronauts, microdrones and viral vaccines, this gripping, unforgettable novel is a testament to our yearning to create and cross borders, and a meditation on the slow, grand passage of time. Praise for The Old Drift "An intimate, brainy, gleaming epic . . . This is a dazzling book, as ambitious as any first novel published this decade."--Dwight Garner, The New York Times "A founding epic in the vein of Virgil's Aeneid . . . though in its sprawling size, its flavor of picaresque comedy and its fusion of family lore with national politics it more resembles Salman Rushdie's Midnight's Children."--The Wall Street Journal "A story that intertwines strangers into families, which we'll follow for a century, magic into everyday moments, and the story of a nation, Zambia."--NPR

Marzollo introduces children to a great scientist and encourages them to cultivate a sense of wonder and a desire to explore. Full color.

A new take on Afrofuturism, this book gathers together a range of contemporary voices who, carrying legacies of 500 years of contact between Africa, Europe, and the Americas, reach towards the stars and unknown planets, galaxies, and ways of being. Writing from queer and feminist perspectives and circumnavigating continents, they recalibrate definitions of Afrofuturism. The editors and contributors of this exciting volume thus reflect upon the re-emergence of Black visions of political and cultural futures, proposing practices, identities, and collectivities. With contributions from AfroFuturist Affair, John Akomfrah, Jamika Ajalon, Stefanie Alisch, Jim Chuchu, Grisha Coleman, Thomas F. DeFrantz, Abigail DeVille, M. Asli Dukan with Wildseeds, Kodwo Eshun, Anna Everett, Raimi Gbadamosi, Alexis Pauline Gumbs, Milumbe Haimbe, Ayesha Hameed, Kiluanji Kia Henda, Kara Keeling, Carla J. Maier, Tobias Nagl, Tavia Nyongo, Rasheedah Phillips, Daniel Kojo Schrade, Nadine Siegert, Robyn Smith, Greg Tate and Frohawk Two Feathers.

In Extended Play, one of the country's most innovative music writers conducts a wide-ranging tour through the outer limits of contemporary music. Over the course of more than twenty-five portraits, interviews, and essays, John Corbett engages artists from lands as distant as Sweden, Siberia, and Saturn. With a special emphasis on African American and European improvisers, the book explores the famous and the little known, from John Cage and George Clinton to Anthony Braxton and Sun Ra. Employing approaches as diverse as the music he celebrates, Corbett illuminates the sound and theory of funk and rap, blues and jazz, contemporary classical, free improvisation, rock, and reggae. Using cultural critique and textual theory, Corbett addresses a broad spectrum of issues, such as the status of recorded music in postmodern culture, the politics of self-censorship, experimentation, and alternativism in the music industry, and the use of metaphors of space and madness in the work of African American musicians. He follows these more theoretically oriented essays with a series of extensive profiles and in-depth interviews that offer contrasting and complementary perspectives on some of the world's most creative musicians and their work. Included here are more than twenty original photographs as well as a meticulously annotated discography. The result is one of the most thoughtful, and most entertaining, investigations of contemporary music available today.

After photographing metropolises such as Tokyo, Sao Paolo, Cairo, Paris and Mexico City, Aglaia Konrad manipulates these images by mirroring, enlarging, collaging and copying them. In her two- and three-dimensional installations she not only plays with the phenomena and the representation of the city but also toys with questions concerning ambiguity, identity, and perception. An ambitious and substantial tome, Elasticity offers insight into the characteristics and images of the metropolis. In Konrad's highly individual image manipulations, a fascinating topography of urban fabrics, facades, infrastructure, architectural forms, and surfaces is revealed. This 248-page visual essay presents her personal photographic archive "installed" in book form in a unique sequence and rhythm. Elasticity also offers a reflection on Konrad's work through essays by critic and curator Daniel Kurjakovic, artist Eran Schaerf, and Antonio Guzman, director of art space L'Aquarium in Valenciennes. Published in conjunction with L'Aquarium, Valcenciennes and Argos, Brussels.

A collection of entries that help chronicle the history of photography, explaining the different techniques that have been used and defining the common terms used in the field.

In The Corinthians, curators Ed Jones and Timothy Prus present more than 200 slides taken with Kodachrome film. The images in this collective visual portrait describe the new prosperity of a postwar United States, highlighting barbecues, big cars and families on vacation.