The Live Art Almanac Vol. 2

From the special edition of Maska on the occasion of the 25th anniversary of the Contemporary Dance Association Slovenia. In Slovenian and English.

In November, 1781, the captain of the slave ship Zong ordered that some 150 Africans be murdered by drowning so that the ship’s owners could collect insurance monies. Relying entirely on the words of the legal decision Gregson v. Gilbert-the only extant public document related to the massacre of these African slaves-Zong! tells the story that cannot be told yet must be told. Equal parts song, moan, shout, oath, ululation, curse, and chant, Zong! excavates the legal text. Memory, history, and law collide and metamorphose into the poetics of the fragment. Through the innovative use of fugal and counterpointed repetition, Zong! becomes an anti-narrative lament that stretches the boundaries of the poetic form, haunting the spaces of forgetting and mourning the forgotten.

This fully-illustrated book brings together for the first time an account of Baker’s career as an artist – from her first sculptures at Central St Martins in the early 1970s to her most recent work, ‘How to Live’ and ‘Diary Drawings’ – with critical commentary by reviewers and academic practitioners.

Interviews with people at the intersection of disability, queerness, kink, sex work and survivorship.

This zine brings together writings and words from contributors who came together in the summer of 2018 at Bethnal Green Nature Reserve (BGNR) to think about and connect with soil.

Unframing Photography: Performing the Image to See Otherwise is a new book by transdisciplinary artist Manuel Vason, and his third publication with LADA after the ground-breaking Exposures (2002) and Double Exposures (2014).

Common Salt was a performance around a table – a ‘show and tell’ by artists Sheila Ghelani and Sue Palmer. It explored the colonial, geographical and natural history of England and India taking an expansive and emotional time-travel, from the first Enclosure Act and the start of the East India Company in the 1600s, to 21st century narratives of trade, empire and culture.

In the performance Sue and Sheila activated insights into our shared past, laying out a ‘home museum’ of objects and stories about borders and collections, the Great Hedge of India, a forgotten naturalist – all accompanied by original Shruti box laments.

This book documents and explores the project, placing the performance text, images and reflections from both artists alongside writings by invited guests – from curators and artists to audience members.

Common Salt is designed by John Hunter (aka RULER) and published by LADA.

This book explores the practical, philosophical and aesthetic implications of performers working in pairs. It focuses on a ten-year period in the work of Karen Christopher, alongside wider reflections on the duet as a concept in artistic and social life. The book presents an investigation of the entanglement of form and practice seen through the lens of the smallest multiple unit of collaboration: the pair.

This book is Derek Jarman’s own record of how this garden evolved, from its earliest beginnings in 1986 to the last year of his life. More than 150 photographs taken since 1991 by his friend and photographer Howard Sooley capture the garden at all its different stages and at every season of the year. Photographs from all angles reveal the garden’s complex geometrical plan, its magical stone circles and its beautiful and bizarre sculptures. We also catch glimpses of Jarman’s life in Dungeness: walking, weeding, watering, or just enjoying life.

Featuring conversations, essays, drawings and photographs, Bodies of Knowledge(Ed. Laura Purseglove) reflects and builds on an interdisciplinary project involving artists, amateur and professional dancers, wrestlers, members of a trans community group and academic researchers interrogating how our bodies are both produced by and productive of knowledges.

Book in English with translations to Serbian and French language
With essays by Dr Marina Grzinic, Dr Suzana Milevska and Tanja Ostojić

In June 2020, a group of 23 creative practitioners came together in virtual spaces to think, talk, listen and dream, learning from each other and through the act of dialogue. These writings reflect some of their thinking, on where we are now and some of the paths forward. FIELD notes is a call for change with care and transparency at its core.