WHAT TO LET GO?

Editors: Cosmin Costinaş,
Inti Guerrero
Published by Sternberg Press
English
368 pages
21 x 29.6 cm
Hardcover
ISBN 978-3-95679-642-5

Price: 135 lei

This book contributes to discussions about what counts as heritage now, who gets to do the counting, and broader related issues around the subject of cultural sovereignty. It unpacks historical narratives and political memories linked with objects, sites, and ceremonies that have been lost, looted, restituted, repatriated, revived, or reinvented. Through its diverse line-up of discourse, poetry, and original artistic contributions, it weaves together subjects and geographies that are not usually part of the same conversation —from plundered cultural belongings held in colonial collections, to processes of renaming or removing symbols of past eras— and considers how they relate in the context of recent social upheavals and political processes across continents. In our era of dangerous revisionism, when history has become a battlefield for both the left and the right, we are asking: How can art reconfigure our collective foundational myths? And of what should we let go on the journey towards figuring it out?

Contributions by: Cosmin Costinaş, Inti Guerrero, Marian pastor Roces, Dusadee Huntrakul, Bonaventure Soh Bejeng Nkidung, Radcliffe Bailey, Maia Nuku, Nikau Hindin, Pablo Jose Ramirez, Sven Haakanson, Myrlande Constant, Vivian Ziherl, Natasha Ginwala, Cecilia Vicuna, Thongchai Winichakul, Hong Lysa, Frank Tang, Carol Yinghua Lu, Xiaoxuan Lu, Bo Wang, Pio Abad, Frances Wadsworth, Lawrence Abu Hamdan, Naman P. Ahuja, Lia Colombino, Olinda Silvano, Vali Mahlouji, Ray Nget, Yuk Hui.