Title: Didactics to Postpone the End of the World
Author: Sarah Shamash
Series: Undercurrents and Flows
Host Artists (series editors): Lois Klassen and Deanne Achong
Designer: Aaniya Asrani
Book Binder: Ruby Lewis
Printer: Copies Plus (cover and pages); MET Fine Printers Inc. (cards)
Date: 2024
Pages: 28 page signature with cover and six 2-sided cards
Language: English
Dimensions: 4.25″ (106 mm) x 5.5″ (141 mm) x .13″ (4 mm)
Binding: Single hand sewn signature; cover with folded flaps; cards tipped into back cover
Edition: 200
ISBN: 978-1-988895-37-6
Copyright : Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 ) License). Content copyrights remain with listed contributors.
Reflecting on her grandmother’s displacement, whose Arab-Jewish ancestry included migrations from Syria to Palestine to Brazil, Sarah Shamash grapples with ways to be an artist during a livestreamed genocide. Her reflections end by paying tribute to six individuals from her community who are part of a superheroes photographic series. Six superhero cards accompany this publication.
In 2020, I began the art project, Archiving is not for Superheros. It came about as a result of acquiring art history slides from the visual art resource centre at UBC… I felt an affinity for these materials because I used to shoot a lot of 35mm slides and even do slide shows. Eventually, I decided to make the slides into a cape. I thought of it as an intervention into the art history archives. Stitching the slides into a cape involved a gathering of comrades, all women-identifying, to co-create this superhero slide cape…”
This publication would not have been possible without funding and support from BC Arts Council (Individual Arts Award); Canada Council for the Arts (Research Creation, Explore and Create grant); SSHRC Postdoctoral Fellowship at Critical Media Art Studio (cMAS), School of Interactive Art and Technology, SFU.
