Elias Sime

Elias Sime
Author: Tracy L. Adler
Publisher: National Geographic Books
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2020-03-27
Genre: Art
ISBN: 3791358812

A first-ever monograph featuring the work of the Ethiopian artist Elias Sime, who brilliantly explores the impact of life in a post-consumerist world. Sime's brightly-colored sculptural tableaus feature found objects including thread, buttons, electrical wires, and computer detritus. This book highlights the artist's work from the last decade, much of which comprises the series entitled "Tightrope." Repurposing salvaged electronic components, such as circuits and keyboards, Sime incorporates the refuse that are the byproducts of technological advancement, and points to the urgency of sustainability. The resulting abstractions reference landscape and the figure as well as traditional Ethiopian textiles. "Tightrope" refers to the precarious balance between the progress technology has made possible and its detrimental impact on the environment. Published with the Ruth and Elmer Wellin Museum of Art

Radiant Night

Radiant Night
Author: Patrick Lohier
Publisher: Adaptive Books
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2018-09-18
Genre: Iraq War, 2003-2011
ISBN: 9781945293665

"Ludwig Mason is the only marine to have survived an explosion that reduced his military Humvee to a smoldering wreck in war-torn Fallujah. Back home on American soil, the 28-year-old Iraq War vet struggles through the traumatized, booze-and drug-addled aftermath. He fears that he's lost his family, his friends, and his last chance at anything when something like fate intervenes in the form of a mysterious stranger named Mrs. S. The old fortune-teller tells Ludwig about an heirloom seized from her family by Nazis decades ago--a fabled tarot deck that has 23 major arcana cards instead of the customary 22. A deck that she believes is now located somewhere in Mobile, Alabama. Whatever it was that brought Ludwig to Mrs. S.--be it chance, or fate-- now draws him into an hallucinatory odyssey fraught with arcane symbols, danger, and paranoia as he ventures to retrieve the missing tarot deck and, with any luck, a piece of his own lost soul"--Page 4 of cover.

Social and Ecological System Dynamics

Social and Ecological System Dynamics
Author: Krystyna Stave
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 645
Release: 2017-04-06
Genre: Technology & Engineering
ISBN: 3319457551

This book is a social—ecological system description and feedback analysis of the Lake Tana Basin, the headwater catchment of the Upper Blue Nile River. This basin is an important local, national, and international resource, and concern about its sustainable development is growing at many levels. Lake Tana Basin outflows of water, sediments, nutrients, and contaminants affect water that flows downstream in the Blue Nile across international boundaries into the Nile River; the lake and surrounding land have recently been proposed as a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve; the basin has been designated as a key national economic growth corridor in the Ethiopian Growth and Transformation Plan. In spite of the Lake Tana Basin’s importance, there is no comprehensive, integrated, system-wide description of its characteristics and dynamics that can serve as a basis for its sustainable development. This book presents both the social and ecological characteristics of the region and an integrated, system-wide perspective of the feedback links that shape social and ecological change in the basin. Finally, it summarizes key research needs for sustainable development.

Robert Irwin Getty Garden

Robert Irwin Getty Garden
Author: Lawrence Weschler
Publisher: Getty Publications
Total Pages: 138
Release: 2020-06-18
Genre: Art
ISBN: 1606066560

A beautifully illustrated, accessible volume about one of the Getty Center’s best-loved sites. Among the most beloved sites at the Getty Center, the Central Garden has aroused intense interest from the moment artist Robert Irwin was awarded the commission. First published in 2002, Robert Irwin Getty Garden is comprised of a series of discussions between noted author Lawrence Weschler and Irwin, providing a lively account of what Irwin has playfully termed “a sculpture in the form of a garden aspiring to be art.” The text revolves around four garden walks: extended conversations in which the artist explains the critical choices he made—from plant materials to steel—in the creation of a living work of art that has helped to redefine what a modern garden can and should be. This updated edition features new photography of the Central Garden in a smaller, more accessible format.

Africanfuturism

Africanfuturism
Author: Kimberly Cleveland
Publisher: Ohio University Press
Total Pages: 272
Release: 2024-02-27
Genre: Art
ISBN: 0821441264

In the past few decades, Western studies of Afrofuturism have grown to encompass examples deriving from multiple sites across the diaspora, as well as from the African continent. However, an increasing number of Africans and Africanists have voiced their concerns about grouping African work under the larger umbrella of Afrofuturism without distinction and have emphasized the need to investigate the differences between African American and African production. This book offers an introduction to Africanfuturism—a body of African speculative works that is distinguishable from, albeit related to, US-based Afrofuturism. Kimberly Cleveland uses Africanfuturism as an intellectual lens to explore works that embody combinations of possibilities, challenges, and concerns related to what lies ahead for the continent and its peoples. This book highlights twenty-first-century film, video, painting, sculpture, photography, tapestry, novels, short stories, comic books, song lyrics, and architecture by African creatives of different nationalities, races, ethnicities, genders, and generations. Cleveland analyzes the ideas and opinions of African intellectuals and cultural producers, combining interviews with historical research. Each chapter features one of Africanfuturism’s most common themes: space and time exploration, creation of worlds, technology and the digital divide, Sankofa and remix, and mythmaking. This investigation of Africanfuturism is geared toward students, academics, and Afrofuturism enthusiasts, and its included discussion questions facilitate classroom use. The book illuminates Africa’s place in the worlds of science fiction and fantasy and how Africanfuturist work builds on the continent’s own traditions of speculative expression. Because these creative works disrupt the history of Western domination in Africa, Cleveland also connects Africanfuturism with the process of decolonization and addresses specific ways in which African creatives (re)center indigenous beliefs, strategies, and approaches in their production. Africanfuturism encourages both imaginative possibilities and potential real-world outcomes, highlighting the rich contributions of Africans to the vision of future worlds.

Ethiopia in Transit

Ethiopia in Transit
Author: Pietro Toggia
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 229
Release: 2013-10-18
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 131798207X

The writings in this edition explore historical and contemporary issues in Ethiopia as the country underwent change and celebrated its new millennium. However, despite the recognizance of socio-economic and political changes, Ethiopia still faces enduring problems and challenges to its stability and continuity. The political past haunts the country while it is facing the future with optimism and hope. The contributors in this edition examine historical and contemporaneous issues with different lenses; they investigate the multiplicity and complexity of the contradictions that define traditional and modern Ethiopia. The contributions highlight the significance of the instability, dislocation, conflict and transformation inherent in any society. None of these writings, however, celebrate the forces that create the conflict; they are cautious not to glorify the present and romanticize the past. On the contrary, they seek to contextualize the challenges which the country faces with a view to open a dialogue, not exclusively among Ethiopians, but with scholars and social activists in the rest of Africa, as well as the international community. The contributions cover and examine such important topics as historiography, political power and legitimacy, ideology and radical views, knowledge transmission and modernity, emigration and the Ethiopian Diaspora, ethnic and linguistic identity, patriarchy and feminist discourses in a traditional society, public policies and economic development, traditional and modern art and culture, and neo-liberalism and globalization. This book was published as a special issue of African Identities.

African Art Now

African Art Now
Author: Osei Bonsu
Publisher: Chronicle Books
Total Pages: 244
Release: 2022-10-18
Genre: Art
ISBN: 1797221019

This deluxe hardcover survey, featuring profiles of 50 artists on the rise, is the definitive guide to contemporary African art. With African artists attracting sizable audience numbers to museums, setting sky-high auction records, and appearing in mainstream press, it has become impossible to overlook the cultural significance of contemporary African art today. Author and curator Osei Bonsu's engaging profiles of leading African artists—along with gorgeous full-color reproductions of their work—introduce readers to a generation of movers and shakers whose innovative artwork reflects on Africa as both an idea and an experience. Using diverse forms, languages, and expressions to articulate what it means to be a part of the world, these artists generate alternate histories and imaginative futures—work that is both personal and political, universal and incredibly specific. Their work helps define contemporary African art as a vast artistic and cultural movement. STELLAR ROSTER OF ARTISTS: Amoako Boafo, Njideka Akunyili Crosby, Tunji Adeniyi-Jones, Bronwyn Katz—from household names to up-and-coming artists, African Art Now features some of the most exciting artists working today. IMPORTANT AND TIMELY: Over the past two decades, contemporary African art has become part of the global mainstream, inspiring countless exhibitions, fairs, and auctions around the world. And yet, African art remains overlooked as an area of dedicated study due to continued academic and cultural bias. This book shines a spotlight on the artists whose wide-ranging accomplishments represent the shifting dynamics and boundless possibilities of African art today. Perfect for: Artists, art collectors, art lovers, and museumgoers Educators and students Anyone interested in learning about contemporary African art