Inspired by the Where Do We Go From Here 2024 - 2025 campaign

Where Do We Go From Here?

Inspired by the Where Do We Go From Here 2024 - 2025 campaign

Been Magic * Been Real is a limited edition risograph artists’ book and correlating exhibition by interdisciplinary Ethiopian-American artist Helina Metaferia. Modeled after traditional Ethiopian “magic” talisman scrolls, Metaferia makes a contemporary paper scroll book out of collaged images of Black Indigenous People of Color (BIPOC)women (cis and trans femmes) who have previously engaged in her By Way of Revolution social practice workshops around the country.
Protective iconography appropriated from the talisman scrolls adorn each image of the activists, who stand in historical revolutionary gestures. Crowd sourced text from her workshops and participatory installations are placed in sections where prayers are traditionally scribed. Bodily and performative in nature, Been Magic * Been Real is printed to scale of the human form, and can be hung as art, gazed upon, read, recited, or carried as armor in its portable carrying case as a wearable sculpture, much like the traditional scrolls it was modeled after. Like the original scrolls, the book functions as a “visual medicine” with a twist toward contemporary politics and social justice.
This risograph is published by Center for Book Arts, New York, NY.

Title

Been Magic * Been Real

A second edition of Helina Metaferia's monograph book, Generations, was released in Fall 2024, coinciding with the artist's solo exhibition at the Museum of African Diaspora, San Francisco, CA. The first edition was printed in 2022, coinciding with her solo exhibition at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, MA.
This 44 page soft cover saddle stitched book includes a portfolio of the artist's work since 2015. There is an interview between Museum of Fine Arts, Boston curator Michelle Millar Fisher, independent curator Chenoa Baker, and the artist on her practice, and an essay on her work by author and art historian Aruna D'Souza. The book was designed by Ramon Tejada, Associate Professor of Graphic Design at RISD.

Generations

From 1999-2014, American artist and For Freedoms Co-Founder Eric Gottesman’s collaboration with Sudden Flowers, a collective of children living in Addis Ababa, produced a body of work of profound depth and poetic lightness. In reimagining the harsh realities the children experienced on the streets and in their homes in the wake of their parents’ deaths – including the trauma of grief, physical abuse and AIDS-related stigma – the young collective and Gottesman probed the possibilities of image making as a tool for self-expression, healing and teaching others. The Polaroid camera and peel-away negatives provided tools for recreating and alleviating the children’s deeply painful injuries.
Working together, Sudden Flowers and Gottesman ultimately discovered that photography could be a medium to express their resilience and hunger for life. Over the 15-year span of the work, Sudden Flowers and Gottesman produced exhibitions, short films and installations in Africa, the United States and Europe. In Sudden Flowers, the work of the entire project comes together for the first time in a book.
All books come with a unique envelope, handmade and decorated by the members of Sudden Flowers.

Sudden Flowers

Size

WHERE DO WE GO FROM HERE? Tee

The first monograph of the hundreds of billboards by artist-led coalition For Freedoms, the largest public creative collaboration in American history, published by Phaidon/Monacelli.  
Founded in 2016 by Hank Willis Thomas, Eric Gottesman, Wyatt Gallery, and Michelle Woo, For Freedoms is an artist-led organization that uses art as a catalyst for creative civic engagement, discourse, and direct action. 
With the aim to infuse an anti-partisan, arts-based perspective into the political landscape, For Freedoms has collaborated with thousands of artists, activists, and scholars to create more than 500 evocative billboards that use art as a vehicle to deepen public discussions on civic issues and core values.
This comprehensive volume includes billboards created between 2016-2023 by over 400 established artists, including Derrick Adams, Gina Belafonte, Sanford Biggers, Paula Crown, Shepard Fairey, Theaster Gates, Guerrilla Girls, Jenny Holzer, Rashid Johnson, JR, Christine Sun Kim, Marilyn Minter, Sofía Gallisá Muriente, Gordon Parks, Kameelah Janan Rasheed, Maggie Rogers, Hank Willis Thomas, Carrie Mae Weems, and Ai Weiwei, among many more.
This new book celebrates how For Freedoms has transformed public commercial space into exhibition space and launched a creative collaboration of epic proportion. Published ahead of the 2024 American presidential election, it also underscores the For Freedoms mission to model how art can urge communities into greater action and participation. 
Specifications: 
<ul>
<li>Format: Hardback</li>
<li>Size: 304 × 228 mm (12 × 9 in)</li>
<li>Pages: 360 pp</li>
<li>Illustrations: 500 illustrations</li>
<li>ISBN: 9781580936620</li>
</ul>