sx68 features essays by Arnaldo M. Cruz-Malavé, Jenny Sharpe, M. Myrta Leslie Santana, and Peter L. Haffner.  We launch the new section Keywords in Caribbean Studies: A Small Axe Project introduced by Vanessa Pérez-Rosario and Ryan Cecil Jobson. Our first keyword is zwart, negro/a/x*, negre, and Black, and it is explored in essays by Gloria Wekker, Omaris Z. Zamora, Grégory Pierrot, and Leniqueca A. Welcome. The essay and visual essay, "everything slackens in a wreck," by Andil Gosine develops a discussion about four Caribbean artists: Wendy Nanan, Margaret Chen, Kelly Sinnapah Mary, and Andrea Chung. Kelly Sinnapah Mary's work entitled "Notebook of No Return 10: Childhood of Sanbras, 2021" also serves as this issue's cover image. Lastly, Rocío Zambrana, Petra R. Rivera-Rideau, and Ronald Mendoza-de Jesús examine Ren Ellis Neyra's The Cry of the Senses: Listening to Latinx and Caribbean Poetics, for the book discussion

You can browse the new issue's full table of contents at Duke University Press's website, where it is also available for purchase.

everything slackens in a wreck
Curated by Andil Gosine, features Artists Margaret Chen, Andrea Chung, Wendy Nanan and Kelly Sinnapah Mary

New York, NY— The Ford Foundation Gallery will reopen its physical space with everything slackens in a wreck, an exhibition running from June 1 to August 20, 2022. The gallery will host an opening reception with the artists on June 1 from 6-8 p.m and viewing hours are Monday through Saturday from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. The titular metaphor of wreckage evokes colonialism and the destruction left in its wake, but it also echoes what the exhibition’s curator calls the “wrecking work” of marginalized peoples who answer this destruction with art that invents its own subversive forms of order, rendering alternate visions of existence, and co-existence, imaginable, and therefore possible. Featuring the work of four artists with a shared diasporic heritage and curated by Trinidadian scholar, author and artist Andil Gosine, everything slackens in a wreck is the first show to appear in the Ford Foundation Gallery space since its closure in March 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The exhibition includes Margaret Chen (Jamaica/Canada), Andrea Chung (USA), Wendy Nanan (Trinidad and Tobago) and Kelly Sinnapah Mary (Guadeloupe). The four women share heritage in the indentureship program, which brought Asian migrants to the Americas and elsewhere to labor on plantations following the abolition of slavery. They also share a playful and disruptive approach to this history’s complex afterlife, through combining and reimagining artifacts and images associated with it. The curator was deliberate in putting the two pairs of artists in conversation. Chinese-Jamaican Chen, 71, and Indo-Trinidadian Nanan, 67, are pioneering Caribbean artists in their fields, and one witnesses legacies and departures from their practices in the new works created exclusively for this exhibition by Caribbean American Chung, 44, and Indo-Guadeloupean Sinnapah Mary, 42, who both elaborate and expand on ideas that similarly draw on this shared history.

The exhibition highlights the ways their artistic processes echo their own and their families’ ongoing journeys of invention and reinvention, as complex identities merge and evolve. Using paint, papier-mâché and foraged items like wood and shells, the artists transform humble materials into intricate forms and hybrid creatures that are part plant and part human, linking the inherent creativity of the natural world to the adaptive practices migrants use to survive and thrive.

With a reading library onsite, videos in the gallery, an illustrated catalogue and other publications and related artworks in the Ford Foundation space, everything slackens in a wreck offers visitors a roadmap for discovering new forms of agency in the path of destruction. Curator Andil Gosine, Professor of Environmental Arts and Justice at York University in Toronto and author of Nature’s Wild: Love, Sex and Law in the Caribbean (Duke, 2021), drew the exhibition title from a phrase in “Cale d’étoiles,” Khal Torabully’s epic poem about Indians traveling to the Caribbean, Mauritius, Fiji and South Africa between 1838 and 1917. Continuing the theme of wreckage as a symbol for colonialism, Gosine coined the term “wrecking work” to describe how migrant women use creative tactics to disrupt gender norms and the status quo, raising larger questions about received views of the so-called “natural order.” “Possibilities always open up in the fissures created by crisis,” Gosine writes. “The framework of this exhibition bears broader relevance, as evidenced in 2020 by the myriad responses to the pandemic and the stunning force of the Black Lives Matter movement; however bad things get, the human spirit and our survivalist drive force new shifts and invent new paths.”

Margaret Chen foraged oyster shells from mangroves and plywood cast-offs from the studio that was previously a part of her family's furniture business to construct “Cross-section of labyrinth,” a 22’ wide floor piece that looks as delicate as a leaf floating on water. Raised in a family of Chinese migrants who owned a furniture business, Chen became interested in wood as an art material when she studied with Afro-Jamaican sculptor Winston Patrick at the Jamaica School of Art and Crafts. Later, when she would return to her family’s store, Chen gathered the leftover shapes and scraps, infusing them with new life and meaning in her art. “That is what I do,” she says in the catalogue. “I take leavings from whatever is there. That’s the interesting bits.”

Andrea Chung’s contribution, crafted on-site in the gallery out of sugarcane scraps collected in Trinidad, is a massive community bird’s nest. Born in the United States to a Chinese-Jamaican father and Trinidadian mother, the artist modeled the form on the elaborate creations of weaver birds she observed in Mauritius (pictured in prints on the gallery walls). “I came to see the weaver bird’s process as a metaphor for how enslaved and indentured peoples are forced to adapt and create homes in spaces that weren’t created with their survival in mind,” Chung says in the catalogue. “Building nests,” she explains, “is an opportunity to bring that metaphor to life…to pay homage to the resilience and tenacity of groups impacted by the transatlantic slave trade.”

Guadeloupean artist Kelly Sinnapah Mary is contributing two series of work to everything slackens in a wreck: five large scale paintings comprising a triptych and renditions of her parents and 20 papier mâché sculptures from her series “Notebook of No Return.” For Sinnapah Mary, creating art is a way to process a heritage she did not know about until adulthood: that she is descended from indentured Indian workers brought to Guadeloupe. “When I was a child, I considered myself to be Afro-descendant. The story of my ancestors was never told to me–either in my family or at school,” she says in the catalogue. “I had this need to seek out and to shed light on a missing part of my story.” In the paintings, human forms (often the artist) merge with leaves, creating ethereal hybrids. Sinnapah Mary also appears in her playfully surrealist sculptures, including one in which she reimagines the Hindu Goddess Durga as a uniformed schoolgirl riding a tiger.

Wendy Nanan, who grew up with Christian and Hindu practices at home in Trinidad, contributes two series to everything slackens in a wreck. Her mixed-media pods—lips seductively parted and embedded with shells—are at once erotic and threatening, somewhere between woman and plant. Nanan’s papier mâché sculptures embody conflictive cultural hybrids: one shows the Hindu baby Krishna with Christian angel wings, holding a pride rainbow. “Idyllic Marriage” is clearly not—La Divina Pastora/Siparia Mai/the Black Madonna is depicted in a forced union with a menacing Vishnu. "What is so interesting about La Divina is that Hindus and Catholics share her, as well," the artist says in the catalogue, “That, for me, is the reality of what it means to beTrinidadian.”

Along with the four featured artists, everything slackens in a wreck will include various elements designed to engage and inspire visitors. At the show’s entrance, Antiguan artist amber williams-king’s beaded tapestry will announce the exhibition title and mark visitors’ entrance into the space of dream-like, multi-faceted possibility that the exhibition evokes. The Ford Foundation’s indoor garden will feature a soundscape produced by the curator in collaboration with the New York-based organization Jahajee Sisters, whose mission it to “address, redress and dismantle gender-based violence within the city’s Indo-Caribbean community. The collected sounds that comprise the score were the women’s responses to Gosine’s questions “What brings you joy? What brings you comfort?”

A reading room in the gallery will offer writings on hybrid culture, Caribbean queer and feminist issues and Afro-Asian identity. The exhibition catalogue includes texts by Ford Foundation president Darren Walker, gallery director Lisa Kim, curator Andil Gosine and essays on the featured artists: Elena Chou and Aitak Sorahitalab report on their dialogues with Margaret Chen, amber williams-king writes about her encounter with Andrea Chung’s practice; Wendy Nanan’s work is discussed by acclaimed poet-author Shivanee Ramlochan; and noted filmmaker Richard Fung writes a response to Kelly Sinnapah Mary’s work.

An orchestral score carries the exhibition’s story into the Ford Foundation atrium garden. “Jahajee (Ouverture)” was produced by Gosine in collaboration with Jahajee Sisters, a group of intergenerational Indo-Caribbean women who fight gender-based violence and create paths for self-determination. To create the work, the members will produce sounds from objects of their choosing that elicit memories attached to their experience of migration.

ABOUT THE FORD FOUNDATION GALLERY

Opened in March 2019 at the Ford Foundation Center for Social Justice in New York City, the Ford Foundation Gallery aims to shine a light on artwork that wrestles with difficult questions, calls out injustice and points the way toward a fair and just future. Our hope is for this to be a responsive and adaptive space, one that serves the public in its openness to experimentation, contemplation and conversation. Located near the United Nations, the space is situated to draw visitors from around the world—and address questions that cross borders and speak to the universal struggle for human dignity.

The gallery is located inside the Ford Foundation Center for Social Justice and is accessible to the public through the building entrance on 43rd Street, east of Second Avenue. Gallery events are open to the public, but registration is required.

ABOUT THE FORD FOUNDATION

The Ford Foundation is an independent organization working to address inequality and build a future grounded in justice. For more than 85 years, it has supported visionaries on the frontlines of social change worldwide, guided by its mission to strengthen democratic values, reduce poverty and injustice, promote international cooperation, and advance human achievement. Today, with an endowment of $16 billion, the foundation has headquarters in New York and 10 regional offices across Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the Middle East. Learn more at www.fordfoundation.org.

Small Axe joins Barbados, the Caribbean region, and the world in mourning the passing of George Lamming on Saturday 4 June 2022. He was much more than the sum of all his remarkable literary achievements. He was above all a visionary whose work aimed to illuminate the Caribbean future in the present.

Walk good, George.
 

In honor of George Lamming's legacy, his interview with David Scott for Small Axe will be free until September 2022. Click here to read.

sx67 starts with essays by Warren Harding, Susan C. Méndez, Chelsea Stieber, Kathleen Donegan, Leanna Thomas, and Marta Fernández Campa. Aaron Kamugisha guest-edits our special section "Kamau Brathwaite at Ninety: In Memoriam," which features articles by Kamugisha, Lorna Goodison, Timothy J. Reiss, Gordon Rohlehr, and Elaine Savory. The Bahamian interdisciplinary visual artist, GIo Swaby, provides this issue's visual essay. Lastly, Kevon Rhiney, Patricia Noxolo, and Jovan Scott Lewis analyze and examine Jovan Scott Lewis's Scammer’s Yard: The Crime of Black Repair in Jamaica in our book discussion.

You can browse the new issue's full table of contents at Duke University Press's website, where it is also available for purchase.

Editora Educación Emergente (EEE), a small-scale independent publisher, established
in 2009 in Cabo Rojo, Puerto Rico, is proud to announce the release of its first three
titles of 2022 to the ample and diverse reading public of the Caribbean.

The most recent addition to the series Edades de Siddhartha is Vanessa Vilches
Norat’s short story collection Archivo rural. According to Marta Aponte Alsina, the
stories collected in this volume constitute “a writing of memories once censored by pain;
the author has dug deep within herself to find the right tone and exact words. Rural life
in the tabaco-producing municipality that was Comerío is allowed to break free from
death and forgetting. In this way, Archivo rural strings the genealogy of the father and
the extended family, with the women-led economy, or the place of women in the
economy, as mothers, tobacco workers, teachers. Breaking with the customary
conceits of nostalgic writing, the death of the father signals instead a total
reconstruction. Vanessa Vilches Norat shows us that it is possible to write like this,
illuminating a world as despised as it is repressed, in which there are still secrets, and
powerful practices.”

To explore our complete catalogue of over seventy titles, please visit:
portal.editoraemergente.com To purchase our books, please visit us online:
editoraemergente.com. Or come to Puerto Rico, where you can find our titles in all local bookstores.

Nuevos títulos de Editora Educación Emergente (EEE)

Editora Educación Emergente (EEE), proyecto editorial independiente de pequeña
escala, fundado en 2009 y con base en Cabo Rojo, Puerto Rico, presenta al amplio y
diverso público caribeño sus primeros tres títulos del año 2022.

Por su parte, la colección de cuentos Archivo rural, de Vanessa Vilches Norat, se
añade a nuestra serie Edades de Siddhartha. En palabras de Marta Aponte Alsina, los
relatos en este libro constituyen “una escritura de la memoria censurada por el dolor; se
ha escarbado piel adentro para dar con el tono y las palabras justas. La vida en la
ruralía del pueblo tabacalero que fue Comerío se desprende de la muerte y el olvido.
Así, Archivo rural hila la genealogía del padre y de la familia extendida, tanto como la
economía de las mujeres, o el lugar de las mujeres en la economía, como madres
reproductoras, tabaqueras, maestras. A diferencia de la escritura nostálgica, la muerte
del padre es la clave inicial de toda una reconstrucción. Se evade el tremendismo; se
trasciende el patetismo. Vanessa Vilches Norat nos demuestra que se puede escribir
así, iluminando un mundo tan despreciado como reprimido, del cual todavía quedan
secretos, e incluso prácticas poderosas.”

Para explorar nuestro catálogo completo, con más de sesenta títulos publicados hasta
la fecha, visita: portal.editoraemergente.com Para adquirir nuestros libros, visita las
librerías locales puertorriqueñas o nuestra tienda en línea en: editoraemergente.com

Nouveaux titres : Editora Educación Emergente / Éditrice

Éducation Émergente (EEE)

Éditrice Éducation Émergente (EEE), projet éditorial indépendant de petite échelle,
fondée en 2009 et localisée à Cabo Rojo, Porto Rico, présente, à l’ample et divers
public caribéen ses trois premiers titres de l’an 2022.

De son côté, la collection de contes Archivo rural / Archive rural, de Vanessa
Vilches Norat, s’ajoute à notre série Edades de Siddhartha / Âges de Siddhârta. Dans
les mots de Marta Aponte Alsina, les récits dans ce livre constituent “une écriture de la
mémoire censurée par la douleur ; elle s’est creusée au plus profond de sa peau pour
donner un ton et les mots justes. La vie dans les zones rurales de Comerío, qui a été le
peuple du tabac, ressort de la mort et de l’oubli. Ainsi, Archive Rural file la généalogie
du père et de la famille étendue, aussi bien que l’économie des femmes, ou le lieu des
femmes dans l’économie, en tant que mères productrices, travailleuses du tabac,
enseignantes. À différence de l’écriture nostalgique, la mort du père est la clé initiale de
toute la reconstruction. L’exagération est éludée ; le pathétisme est transcendé.
Vanessa Vilches Norat nous montre que cette écriture est possible, mettant la lumière
sur un monde si méprisé et refoulé, autour duquel des secrets demeurent, et même des
pratiques puissantes.”

Pour explorer notre catalogue entier, avec plus de soixante titres publiés jusqu’à
présent, visitez : portal.editoraemergente.com Pour acheter nos livres, visitez les
librairies locales portoricaines ou notre magasin en ligne à: editoraemergente.com

Editora Educación Emergente (EEE), a small-scale independent publisher, established
in 2009 in Cabo Rojo, Puerto Rico, is proud to announce the release of its first three
titles of 2022 to the ample and diverse reading public of the Caribbean.

From the series reVolucionA, comes Poéticas de la devastación y la insurgencia:
María y el Verano del 19 by Malena Rodríguez Castro, who weaves here a critical,
theoretical, and creative tapestry, as she surveys a wealth of interdisciplinary texts. The
poetics at the center of this book document the colonial disgrace—and the disgrace of
the colony—at the same time in which they enunciate, recognize, and celebrate the
latent resistance that will the rescue our life in common. With analytic ingenuity,
Rodríguez Castro vindicates the art of politically committed criticism that denounces and
announces. In these pages another, different, Puerto Rican archipelago comes to view:
insubordinate and beautiful, in full defiance of the many forms of destruction, by way of
its precise creation.

To explore our complete catalogue of over seventy titles, please visit:
portal.editoraemergente.com To purchase our books, please visit us online:
editoraemergente.com. Or come to Puerto Rico, where you can find our titles in all local
bookstores.

Nuevos títulos de Editora Educación Emergente (EEE)

Editora Educación Emergente (EEE), a small-scale independent publisher, established
in 2009 in Cabo Rojo, Puerto Rico, is proud to announce the release of its first three
titles of 2022 to the ample and diverse reading public of the Caribbean.

Mientras, la serie reVolucionA se robustece con Poéticas de la devastación y la
insurgencia: María y el Verano del 19 de Malena Rodríguez Castro, quien teje un
tapiz crítico, teórico y creativo a partir de un recorrido sublime por un conjunto de textos
interdisciplinarios que van de lo impreso a lo virtual. Las poéticas estudiadas por la
autora dan cuenta del infortunio colonial, negligente y destructivo, a la par que
enuncian, reconocen y celebran la resistencia latente, al acecho, que vendrá al rescate
de la vida común. Con ingenio analítico, Rodríguez Castro reivindica en una marejada
huracanada y palabrera la crítica comprometida que denuncia y anuncia. En estas
páginas se avista otro archipiélago puertorriqueño de este tiempo: insubordinado y
bello, que desafía la destrucción con la creación precisa.

Para explorar nuestro catálogo completo, con más de sesenta títulos publicados hasta
la fecha, visita: portal.editoraemergente.com Para adquirir nuestros libros, visita las
librerías locales puertorriqueñas o nuestra tienda en línea en: editoraemergente.com

Nouveaux titres : Editora Educación Emergente / Éditrice Éducation Émergente (EEE)

Editora Educación Emergente (EEE), proyecto editorial independiente de pequeña
escala, fundado en 2009 y con base en Cabo Rojo, Puerto Rico, presenta al amplio y
diverso público caribeño sus primeros tres títulos del año 2022.

Entre temps, la série reVolucionA devient plus forte avec Poéticas de la devastación y
la insurgencia: María y el Verano del 19 / Poétiques de la dévastation et
l’insurrection: Maria et l’ été du 19 de Malena Rodríguez Castro, qui tisse un tapis
critique, héroïque et créatif à partir d’un parcours sublime par un ensemble de textes
interdisciplinaires allant de l’impression au virtuel. Les poétiques étudiées par l’écrivaine
rendent compte du malheur colonial, négligent et destructif, en même temps ces textes
énoncent, reconnaissent et célèbrent la résistance latente, et le harcèlement, qui
viendra à la rescousse de la vie commune. Avec ingénuité analytique, Rodríguez
Castro revendique dans un raz-de-marée d’ouragan et verbiage la critique engagée qui
dénonce et annonce. Dans ces pages s’aperçoit un autre archipel portoricain de nos
temps : insubordonné et beau, qui défie la destruction avec la création précise.

Pour explorer notre catalogue entier, avec plus de soixante titres publiés jusqu’à
présent, visitez : portal.editoraemergente.com Pour acheter nos livres, visitez les
librairies locales portoricaines ou notre magasin en ligne à: editoraemergente.com

Editora Educación Emergente (EEE), a small-scale independent publisher, established
in 2009 in Cabo Rojo, Puerto Rico, is proud to announce the release of its first three
titles of 2022 to the ample and diverse reading public of the Caribbean.

Part of the Crónica Otra series, Dos Señores muy viejos con alas enormes, by
Edgardo Rodríguez Juliá, with illustrations by Raimundo Travieso, features, in the
words of Christopher Powers Guimond, “a poetic prose mosaic that transforms a
friendship from the author’s far away youth into distinct flashes of light. Author and
illustrator present readers a bevy of rescued memories bathed in a sort of vindicating
nostalgia. It is a work of late life. And, as such, it is austere, fragmented, virtuosic: a
portrait of the then youthful artist, now turned local myth. At the same time, this intimate
chronicle doubles as allegory for the socio-cultural history of both Cuba and Puerto
Rico. Its multifarious references—to writings, places, and happenings—add up, on the
one hand, to a catalogue of the Muñoz years, as remembered by the Puerto Rican
writer, and on the other, as a collection of the many echoes of the revolution in the
Cuban artist.”

To explore our complete catalogue of over seventy titles, please visit:
portal.editoraemergente.com To purchase our books, please visit us online:
editoraemergente.com. Or come to Puerto Rico, where you can find our titles in all local
bookstores.

Nuevos títulos de Editora Educación Emergente (EEE)

Editora Educación Emergente (EEE), proyecto editorial independiente de pequeña
escala, fundado en 2009 y con base en Cabo Rojo, Puerto Rico, presenta al amplio y
diverso público caribeño sus primeros tres títulos del año 2022.

En la serie Crónica otra, aparece Dos señores muy viejos con alas enormes, de
Edgardo Rodríguez Juliá y con dibujos de Raimundo Travieso. Según señala
Christopher Powers Guimond, este libro “convierte en prosa poética los momentos de
una amistad de la lejana juventud como destellos de luz refractadas y compuestos en
mosaico. Presenta remembranzas rescatadas en un contrapunteo de imagen y texto,
cuyo tono es de una nostalgia reivindicada, triste pero más con añoranza que con
melancolía. Sería como una obra de estilo tardío, austera, fragmentada y virtuosa: un
retrato del artista en su juventud, ahora convertido en mito. A la misma vez esta crónica
íntima sirve de alegoría para el rumbo social y cultural de Puerto Rico y Cuba, ‘de un
pájaro las dos alas.’ Sus referencias a los textos, los espacios y acontecimientos
suman un catálogo de la época muñocista visto por el escritor puertorriqueño y de los
ecos de la Revolución en su amigo, el artista cubano.”

Para explorar nuestro catálogo completo, con más de sesenta títulos publicados hasta
la fecha, visita: portal.editoraemergente.com Para adquirir nuestros libros, visita las
librerías locales puertorriqueñas o nuestra tienda en línea en: editoraemergente.com

Nouveaux titres : Editora Educación Emergente / Éditrice
Éducation Émergente (EEE)

Éditrice Éducation Émergente (EEE), projet éditorial indépendant de petite échelle,
fondée en 2009 et localisée à Cabo Rojo, Porto Rico, présente, à l’ample et divers
public caribéen ses trois premiers titres de l’an 2022.

Dans la série Crónica otra (Une autre chronique), apparaît Dos señores muy viejos
con alas enormes / Deux messieurs très âgés aux ailes géantes, d’Edgardo
Rodríguez Juliá avec des dessins de Raimundo Travieso. D’après Christopher
Powers Guimond, ce livre “rend en prose poétique les moments d’une amitié de la
lointaine jeunesse, avec des étincelles de lumière réfractées et composées en
mosaïque. Il présente des souvenirs récupérés dans un contrepoint d’image et de texte,
dont le ton nostalgique revendiqué, triste, mais il s’agit plutôt du regret que de la
mélancolie. Ce serait comme une œuvre de style tardif, austère, fragmentée et
vertueuse : un portrait de l’artiste dans sa jeunesse, maintenant devenu mythe. En
même temps, cette chronique intime sert d’allégorie pour la direction social et culturelle
de Porto Rico et de Cuba, ‘d’un oiseau les deux ailes.’ Ses références aux textes, aux
espaces et aux évènements, ajoutent un catalogue de l’époque muñoziste vue par
l’écrivain portoricain et les échos de la Révolution de son ami, l’artiste cubain.”

Pour explorer notre catalogue entier, avec plus de soixante titres publiés jusqu’à
présent, visitez : portal.editoraemergente.com Pour acheter nos livres, visitez les
librairies locales portoricaines ou notre magasin en ligne à: editoraemergente.com

sx66 opens with essays by Jennifer Baez, Ines P. Rivera Prosdocimi, Éric Morales-Franceschini, and Guillermina De Ferrari. Kelly Baker Josephs guest-edits our special section "Revisiting Kamau Brathwaite's Poetics of Caribbean Studies," which features essays by Josephs, Rinaldo Walcott, Nadi Edwards, Paul Joseph López Oro. Cosmo Whyte provides this issue's visual essay, "Here... but Disappeared." In the section Translating the Caribbean, Kahlila Chaar-Pérez translates "Ramón Emeterio Betances' speech at the Masonic Lodge in Port-au-Prince." Rivke Jaffe, Nadège T. Clitandre and Jhon Picard Byron close the issue by examining Greg Beckett's There is No More Haiti: Between Life and Death in Port-au-Prince in our book discussion.

Date: Friday, January 14th 2022
Time: 6:00 PM – 8:00 PM EST

sx salon's book review editor Ronald Cummings and sx contributor Nalini Mohabir will launch the new anthology that they edited, The Fire That Time: Black Transnational Radicalism and the Sir George Williams Occupation, with an event on Friday January 14th. The nonfiction book situates the 1969 West Indian students' protest at Sir George Williams University (now Concordia University), transnationally, as part of a network of West Indian student protests against racism, across Canada, the US, the UK, and the Caribbean.

The importance of this story to Montreal’s black community, and across the diaspora, is discussed by various authors, some of whom were there in person, and others who return to this moment to understand the implications of ongoing anti-Black racism. 

Register for the book launch event here.

The Small Axe Project salutes the people of Barbados on the important political step it has taken (30 November 2021), removing the queen as head of state, and assuming the identity of a republic. There is much more to be done. We hope that other anglophone Caribbean nation-states will follow suit. And we hope that this is but the beginning of a renewed conversation in the region about the relation between the colonial past and the postcolonial present, between dependence and sovereignty.

David Scott