Books

Violence is arrayed against us because we’re Black, or female, or queer, or undocumented. There is no rescue team coming for us. With that knowledge, we need a different operational base to recreate the world. It is not going to be a celebrity savior. Never was, never will be. If you’re in a religious tradition that is millennia-old, consider how the last savior went out. It was always going to be bloody. It was always going to be traumatic. But there’s a beauty to facing the reality of our lives. Not our lives as they’re broken apart, written about, and then sold back to us in academic or celebrity discourse. But our lives as we understand them. The most important thing is showing up. Showing up and learning how to live by and with others, learning how to reinvent ourselves in this increasing wasteland. That’s the good life.

Foreword by Da’Shaun L. Harrison.
Afterword by Mumia Abu-Jamal.

"Joy James’s Revolutionary Love is umph-degree love; or love beyond measure. It is anything love. It is love without reckoning. It is love that dares all things, beyond which others may find the spirit-force to survive; to live to fight another day. Such love is also fighting itself, for the sake of ensuring that others may live." — Mumia Abu-Jamal

Rory Pilgrim presents their first catalogue, bringing together their multifaceted practice as a filmmaker, composer, and more. Sharing work produced since 2008, this lovingly made book designed by Modern Activity includes sketchbooks, scores, song lyrics, and poetry. It is published on the occasion of the exhibitions Where The Tide Takes Us, Kunstverein Braunschweig, Germany, and Radio Ballads, Serpentine Gallery, London.

Rory Pilgrim (born 1988 in Bristol) works in a wide range of media including songwriting, composing music, film, music video, text, drawing and live performances. Centred on emancipatory concerns, Pilgrim aims to challenge the nature of how we come together, speak, listen and strive for social change through sharing and voicing personal experience. Strongly influenced by the origins of activist, feminist and socially engaged art, Pilgrim works with others through a different methods of dialogue, collaboration and workshops. In an age of increasing technological interaction, Rory Pilgrim's work creates connections between activism, spirituality, music and how we form community locally and globally from both beyond and behind our screens.

Edited by Rory Pilgrim, Jule Hillgärtner, Nele Kaczmarek, Zsa-Zsa Eyck, Matthew Appleton.

Texts by Jerry Brady, Jule Hillgärtner, Nele Kaczmarek, Human Poney, Louwrien Wijers.