MAAMOUN, Magha; YOUNIS, Ala (eds.)
How to maneuver: Shapeshifting texts and other publishing tactics

Publishing is the act of making public. It is not restricted to specific producers, languages of production, sanctified routes of distribution, and privileged readers. This is not publishing as we have come to know it.

The Arab World is home to a growing number of book fairs and art book fairs. These two types of public platforms run parallel to each other, representing different, if not opposing, economies of cultural capital, systems of representation of subjects and subjectivities, as well as strategies for encountering and conversing with an audience.

This publication emerged out of a series of exhibitions questioning the boundaries separating publishing from independent publishing, or mainstream from alternative cultural production. The space that separates these different regimes of authorship, publishing and readership, is also the space where these differences can be maneuvered – where limits are creatively questioned and hardened practices lured to speak in different tongues.

How to maneuver follows the footsteps of a selection of artistic and publishing practices, and the spaces they seek to create. It proposes a rich variety of historical and contemporary reflections on the languages and formats marginalized in the dominant publishing industry – the snubbed genres, the outlawed subjects, the troubling subjectivities, the excessive, the minimal, the unprofitable, and the unfathomable. [publishers’ note]

Contributors: Ahmad Makia, Ali Eyal, Ali Hussein Al-Adawy, Ali Yass, Andrew Murphie, Bady Dalloul, Barakunan, Bernhard Cella, Elaine W. HO., Faisal Al Hassan, Farah Khelil & antoine lefebvre editions, Fehras Publishing Practices, Giulia Crispiani & Federico Antonini, Hala Bizri & Jana Traboulsi, Haytham el-Wardany, Huda Smitshuijzen AbiFarès, Hussein Nassereddine, Jabbour Douaihy, Jaffat El Aqlam, Khalid Albudoor & Nujoom Alghanem with Rand Abdul Jabbar & Uns Kattan & Hammad Nasar, Moad Musbahi, Noopur Desai, Raafat Majzoub, Yazan Ashqar.

Published by Kayfa ta, 2021
Design by Anton Stuckardt
Exhibition Catalogues / Essays / Book Culture