WALKER, Kara; JOO, Eungie (ed.)
Fortuna and the Immortality Garden (Machine) A Respite for the Weary Time-Traveler. Featuring a Rite of Ancient Intelligence Carried out by The Gardeners Toward the Continued Improvement of the Human Specious by Kara E-Walker

This book documents the creation of Kara Walker’s new commission, Fortuna and the Immortality Garden (Machine) (2024), at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art — presenting the artist’s working drawings and paintings, photographs of her creative process with collaborators, and detailed images of the final installation.

Fortuna and the Immortality Garden (Machine) features eight Black automatons, including the seven-foot-tall prophetess, Fortuna, who responds to each visitor with a choreographed routine and a printed fortune fresh from her mouth. Situated in fields of obsidian—a volcanic glass with deep spiritual properties—the other robotic dolls, or Gardeners, rise and fall, gesture, turn, and clamor—trapped in a never-ending cycle of ritual and struggle. Evoking wonder, reflection, respite, and hope, the work explores the memorialization of trauma, the objectives of technology, and the possibilities of transforming the negative energies that plague contemporary society.

This includes an illuminating text by Walker, an essay by product designer David A. M. Goldberg, a selection of fashion designer Gary Graham’s notebook pages, an excerpt from Donna Haraway’s influential essay “A Cyborg Manifesto,” experimental short fiction by writer Damani McNeil, and a conversation between Walker and curator Eungie Joo. [publisher's note]

Published by SFMOMA / Princeton University Press, 2024
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