An anthology that examines the poetics and politics of interior experience within the frame of contemporary art. Through diverse discursive modes—commissioned essays, conversations and talks, historical writings, and artistic projects—this anthology, the first CCS Readers volume, examines the poetics and politics of interior experience within the frame of contemporary art.

Texts by Anni Albers, Doug Ashford, Gaston Bachelard, Angelo Bellfatto, Nova Benway, Gregg Bordowitz, Johanna Burton, Theresa Choi, Beatriz Colomina, Lynne Cooke, Moyra Davey, Tom Eccles, Diana Fuss, Jennifer Gross, Elizabeth Grosz, Roni Horn, Jenny Jaskey, Susanne Küper, Elisabeth Lebovici, Nathan Lee, Zoe Leonard, Dorit Margreiter, Josiah McElheny, Helen Molesworth, Georges Perec, Juliane Rebentisch, David Reed, Lisa Robertson, Joel Sanders, Virginia Woolf, Amy Zion.

With text by Moyra Davey, Dalie Giroux, Andrea Kunard

Over the last forty years, Moyra Davey’s work in photography, film, and text presents a wide-ranging model of engagement with the world: reflections on producing and consuming, on writing and reading, and on novelty and obsolescence. Based on Davey’s eponymous 2019 film of the same title, i confess triangulates the lives and work of three writers: the American novelist and essayist James Baldwin, the Québécois revolutionary Pierre Vallières, and Ottawa-based political philosopher Dalie Giroux. With Baldwin’s 1962 novel Another Country as its point of departure, the narrative arrives at the work of each figure in succession, threading themes of race and poverty, language, and nationalism into Davey’s personal chronicle of the 1960s and 1970s;a turbulent period of Québécois history marked by separatism and violence, unresolved to this day.

Designed by Santiago da Silva.

The intersection of motherhood and creative life is explored in these writings on mothering that turn the spotlight from the child to the mother herself. Here, in memoirs, testimonials, diaries, essays, and fiction, mothers describe first-hand the changes brought to their lives by pregnancy, childbirth, and mothering.

Contributors include Margaret Atwood, Lydia Davis, Annie Ernaux, Mary Gaitskill, Susan Griffin, Nancy Huston, Jane Lazarre, Ursula K. LeGuin, Margaret Mead, Toni Morrison, Tillie Olsen, Alicia Ostriker, Grace Paley, Sylvia Plath, Adrienne Rich, Sara Ruddick, Mona Simpson, Susan Rubin Suleiman, Alice Walker, Joy William and many more.

Publication accompanying the first part of a diptych exhibition at S.M.A.K., Ghent, spread over two years, comprising new and existing work by artists and photographers including Lewis Baltz, Tina Barney, Mohamed Bourouissa, Moyra Davey, Marc De Blieck, Sara Deraedt, Patrick Faigenbaum, Peter Fraser, Alair Gomes, Jitka Hanzlová, Roni Horn, Stephanie Kiwitt, Aglaia Konrad, Jochen Lempert, Zoe Leonard, Jean-Luc Moulène, Zanele Muholi, Jean-Luc Mylayne, Trevor Paglen, Doug Rickard, Torbjørn Rødland, Michael Schmidt, Arne Schmitt, Allan Sekula, Ahlam Shibli, Malick Sidibé, Dayanita Singh, Wolfgang Tillmans, Marc Trivier and Tobias Zielony.

Produced on the occasion of the exhibition You’re a nice guy to let me hold you like this at Greengrassi, London, 4 September – 24 October, 2015.

More than thirty years ago the Swiss-Argentine artist Vivian Suter (*1949) moved to the rain forest in Panajachel, Guatemala, to live on a former coffee plantation. Since then she has worked on her impressive paintings in her wooden-hut studio, as well as outdoors. Her canvases lie on the sandy ground or hang in trees; dust, mud, leaves, mangos, and insects leave their traces on them. Her painting is influenced by organic processes and coincidence—even natural disasters are her material, when flood waters make their mark on canvases, becoming part of her large, colorful paintings. With texts by Adam Szymczyk, contributions by R. H. Quaytman, Moyra Davey, Hendrik Folkerts. Designed by Studio Manuel Raeder.

You can see Rosalind Nashashibi’s film Vivian’s Garden here.