Zoo Index - Reader (volume 1)

The Fair Kin Arts Almanac is made with the voices of more than 130 artists, writers, and activists spinning their thoughts and experiences into 12 chapters around a year. Surprising perspectives, recipes, sound practices, and reflections around ecology, parenthood, the need to rest in a life that never stops, the urgency for space and infrastructure for artists, redistribution of resources, accessibility of the sector, artistic involvement in politics and much more.

The FAIR KIN ARTS ALMANAC is a circular book, filled with perspectives, recipes, astrological wisdom, ideas, games, proposals and in depth reflections around topics of social political relevance. For the Arts and beyond.

The book was edited by a team of 13 editors that in turn each worked with artists, art workers, writers and academics. Chapters range from politics, making space, education, parenthood, accessibility, ecology, mutuality, rest, migration, redistribution, property & open source and relationality.

A children’s book without a specific age category, offering a glimpse into the small rituals and shared moments that shape a day with Fifi Paris.

Fifi, a Pomeranian-Chihuahua mix, came into the lives of Angelica and Kris a few years ago. Taking care of a puppy is taking responsibility for building their world and letting the small animal transform yours. As her human caretakers, the authors created Fifi’s world with toys, cuddles, rules, snacks and walks in the park. In return, she transforms our world by bringing our community together and reminding us of the importance of caring for one another. In this book, Kris and Angelica narrate a day in the life of Fifi, from the moment she wakes up to when she falls asleep at night. Along the way, they share how they connect with her, how they see her understanding her surroundings and what she has taught them about companionship.

Design by Amy Suo Wu
Copy-editing by Clem Edwards
Photography by Lili Huston-Hertreich

The Poeticians is a publication of the performance of the collection of clothes and poetry called Writing Wounds To Heal by Swedish choreographer Pontus Pettersson. Made in velvet silk with the poetry burned out in the fabric exposing the texts, the poetry exposes both itself and the skin of the performer. Throughout the durational piece the performers are doing Pontus Petterssons cat practice and is one of the main ingredients of the project as well as the clothes/poems. The Poeticans is also a choreo-curational event that hosts different choreographic proposals inside of it. It is seen as module or installation where pieces, objects, performers can be inserted rather than a performance that executes and performs the same over and over. It was created as an extension of Pontus interest in poetry and choreography where hospitality and proximity is seen as key concepts in the development and execution of the event.

The book Taalbarrière brings together reproductions of a drawing's series linked to an audio creation about the border and the language barrier in Belgium through the eyes of secondary school pupils who are learning the language of the other community, French or Dutch.

KNEE BALANCE (2021) is a performance that uses choreography, writing, photography, and design to traverse particular anatomical, personal, and sociopolitical arcs. Time oscillates and fractures movement. Space unfolds. Situated before a hearth in the throes of balance, the performer becomes a crucible for memory, durability, and the reciprocal relationship between the present and the unforeseen.

Comes nested inside ad hoc polyvinyl sleeve with text by Matty Davis printed on front

This work marks the first in a series of performances by Matty Davis arranged for print by Matt Wolff. Distinct in content and form, each work weaves psychosomatic realities with the spatial and temporal possibilities of print.

Vital contributions have been made to this series of performances by artists including Will Arbery, Whitney Browne, Mark Davis, Eryka Dellenbach, Nile Harris, Jonah Rosenberg, Holly Sass, Matt Shalzi, and Bobbi Jene Smith.

Xenofiction proposes an exercise of placing our imagination—and with it our body—inside another's perspective. When we practice becoming with another's experience, we practice empathy. Even though every time we try to speak through a non-human voice we have to accept the impossibility of truly inhabiting another being's vital experience, we can find ways through creative practice to expand the way we sympathize and empathize. This anthology convenes twelve short stories and a visual essay by writers and non-writers that have experimented with plan embodiment.

With texts by: Alice Ahad, Bianca Baldi, Fatma Belkis, Alix Breda, Kai Edwards, Anastasia Eggers, Katie Goss + Rebecca Reynolds, Moselle K, Evie Muir, Yuri Pascacio Montijo, Christian Salablanca Diaz, Javier Velázquez Cabrero and Josfina Vidal Miranda.

An artist's book presenting a photographic study of onions.

On Onions is a photographic study of onions by artist Elad Lassry (born 1977). Characteristically highlighting the spectrum of hues and shapes for the vegetable, Lassry's selected taxonomy includes sections on red, yellow and white onions, each of which possesses its own distinct taste and benefits. On Onions is Lassry's first artist's book, and the work will exist only in book form; it is at once wry, refreshing and disorienting in its biology workbook style, which makes fruitful use of "the confusion that results when there is something just slightly wrong in a photograph" (as the artist has described his practice in general).

Composed by the artist and arranged by Stuart Bailey, the book includes an essay written by Angie Keefer about the effects of sliced onions on human tear ducts.

Salvation is a previously-unpublished artist book by Jimmy DeSana that he conceptualized shortly before his death in 1990. The publication contains 44 of the artist’s late photographic abstractions that quietly and poetically meditate on loss, death, and nothingness. Depicted within the works are images of relics, body parts, flowers, and fruits that DeSana altered using collage and darkroom manipulations to create pictures that are both intimate and other-worldly. Salvation provides a nuanced and sophisticated counterpoint to the prevailing work around HIV/AIDS at the time, which tended to favor bold political statements.

Variations of many of the works in this book were first presented at DeSana’s last show with Pat Hearn Gallery in 1988. Shortly thereafter, the artist began assembling a maquette of Salvation, using black and white images as place holders for the color works that he intended to comprise the final layout of the publication. Sadly, he was unable to fully realize Salvation in his lifetime, but on his deathbed, he dictated instructions to his longtime friend Laurie Simmons for completing the work; instructions which she noted on each page of the single-copy maquette. With these notes, Simmons was able to match extant slides  and sequencing. Simmons’ studio chose color gels from DeSana’s archive for each corresponding black and white image in the assembly of the publication. Thankfully, due to this recuperative work, Salvation—long-considered to be DeSana’s last major work—is now available for the first time, with every step taken to honor and embody DeSana’s original vision.

Jimmy DeSana (1949-1990) grew up in Atlanta, GA, and received his bachelor’s degree from the Georgia State University in 1972 before relocating to New York’s East Village in the early 1970s. Recent solo and two-person exhibitions include The Sodomite Invasion: Experimentation, Politics and Sexuality in the work of Jimmy DeSana and Marlon T. Riggs, Griffin Art Projects, Vancouver, Canada, 2020, and Remainders, Pioneer Works, Brooklyn, NY, 2016. DeSana’s work can be found in numerous public collections including the Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston, MA; Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, IL; Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, TX; Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY; and the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY, among others. A major retrospective of DeSana’s work was exhibited at the Brooklyn Museum, New York, in 2022, accompanied by a catalogue co-published by the Brooklyn Museum and DelMonico Books.