About

"Like cupping water with their hands" will feature artists working with the format of a book to enable their narratives to temporally endure in the public domain, beyond the lifespans presented by available alternatives, such as an exhibition of their works. While these publishing efforts may also be considered to be archival practices, all the exhibited artists depart from the primary focus of their artistic practices to speak to the urgencies emerging from their encounters with collectivities, their solidarities and their collaborations. These publications explore the possibilities—however limited they may be quantitatively—of independent, alternative circuits and modes of production, that lend existence to each of them in the hope for wider access to various publics.

Yet with even more lucidity, these publications encompass counter-memories that resist grand accounts of history, identity and politics, as well as mainstream archives retained and remembered by dominant apparatuses of power/agents such as the state, law, and media that construct and dictate public memory singularly. These ‘petit narratives’ hold memory with care in the face of erasure, from the secular re-articulations of mythology, indigenous forms, folklore to fearless calls for resistance and everyday assertions of resilience. From their own political positions, these publications point towards generative possibilities and perspectives that were meant to be latent but flourish in these radical articulations. Some of them are out of print today, but not by choice. They are all unlimited editions, timeless in spirit that may continue to be re-published, and remain relevant to readers.

This is the second iteration of this project, which was originally exhibited at Focal Point, Sharjah Art Foundation.