research & publishing
hidden histories
The book Republishing: Umoja Zwarte Vrouwenkrant makes a groundbreaking yet vastly unacknowledged grassroots magazine from Arnhem accessible as a source to enrich the still underexposed legacies of Black feminists in the Netherlands.
It all started in December 1984, when Ans Sarianamual made a promise to Audre Lorde to start a magazine for Black women in the Netherlands. Together with a group of Black women organized as the foundation Zwarte Vrouwen & Racisme in Arnhem, the first issue of Umoja Zwarte Vrouwenkrant was published only one month later. As aptly put in the editorial: “So much has already been written about us, which means our time was mostly spent on reacting to pieces written about us by white women. [...] Let’s now start speaking ourselves!” The magazine (1985–1986) was unique for its time because of its radically intersectional approach, and the establishment of “Black” as a political term in order to unite and strengthen all women who were labeled as “the Other” in the Netherlands and beyond. The magazine built on transnational friendships, featuring writings by and about Black women's groups in the U.S., England and South Africa. Besides writing on subjects such as racism, (employment) discrimination and decolonization, Umoja Zwarte Vrouwenkrant published poems, interviews with Dutch Black writers, event announcements and letter submissions in which Black women shared their experiences of racism and discrimination in the Netherlands.
Umoja Zwarte Vrouwenkrant is a revolutionary magazine whose legacy has gotten no recognition. This book aims to bring about change here, and thereby historicize the complete set of magazines, contextualized through an introductory essay by Tamara Hartman and archival findings from Ans Sarianamual’s personal archive, edited by Mirelle van Tulder. Republishing these magazines also means to think of publications as low-threshold archives which help make Black feminist knowledges of the Netherlands accessible outside of archival institutions.
www.archival-textures.com
Distribution by KIOSK, Rotterdam
It all started in December 1984, when Ans Sarianamual made a promise to Audre Lorde to start a magazine for Black women in the Netherlands. Together with a group of Black women organized as the foundation Zwarte Vrouwen & Racisme in Arnhem, the first issue of Umoja Zwarte Vrouwenkrant was published only one month later. As aptly put in the editorial: “So much has already been written about us, which means our time was mostly spent on reacting to pieces written about us by white women. [...] Let’s now start speaking ourselves!” The magazine (1985–1986) was unique for its time because of its radically intersectional approach, and the establishment of “Black” as a political term in order to unite and strengthen all women who were labeled as “the Other” in the Netherlands and beyond. The magazine built on transnational friendships, featuring writings by and about Black women's groups in the U.S., England and South Africa. Besides writing on subjects such as racism, (employment) discrimination and decolonization, Umoja Zwarte Vrouwenkrant published poems, interviews with Dutch Black writers, event announcements and letter submissions in which Black women shared their experiences of racism and discrimination in the Netherlands.
Umoja Zwarte Vrouwenkrant is a revolutionary magazine whose legacy has gotten no recognition. This book aims to bring about change here, and thereby historicize the complete set of magazines, contextualized through an introductory essay by Tamara Hartman and archival findings from Ans Sarianamual’s personal archive, edited by Mirelle van Tulder. Republishing these magazines also means to think of publications as low-threshold archives which help make Black feminist knowledges of the Netherlands accessible outside of archival institutions.
www.archival-textures.com
Distribution by KIOSK, Rotterdam
Over the course of five decades, self-taught musician and ethnomusicologist Spirito Santo (1947) has produced hundreds of hours of audio recordings containing music, reports and interviews, many meters of black & white negatives and colored slides using amateur photographic equipment, such as polaroids, point-and-shoot cameras and K7 recorders, capturing unique moments of the cultural history of the Central African diaspora in Minas Gerais, Brazil.
This season of Roots to Fruits explores the building of a self-funded archive and one of its most recurrent themes, namely: Congadas. Far from the academic realm, which had little to no interest in understanding the “African culture in Brazil”, the archive tells many stories. It speaks of a resilient musician looking for resonance and the history of his people, as well as of the underexposed Black inheritance of Brazil’s identity.
In Memórias Congadeiras, Spirito Santo and his son Caio Rosa challenge hundreds of years of Portuguese imperial rule that have dominated the memory-making processes taking place in Brazil’s society, carrying out a collective process of resistance against colonial erasure of the cultural expressions practiced by their ancestors.
The precious intergenerational and intercontinental conversations that preceded this issue have shown us just how much knowledge and Brazilian history is still hidden in personal archives. Roots to Fruits Nº3 Congada is an homage to Spirito Santo’s life’s work, most of which has never been published before. Through revisited and lost memories, and nuances in translation, this unacknowledged history is now made globally accessible.
Contributors: Spirito Santo & Caio Rosa
Editors: Juliana R. Senna & Mirelle van Tulder
Translation: Juliana R. Senna
Final Editing: Tamara Hartman
Editor-in-Chief: Mirelle van Tulder
Graphic Design: Mirelle van Tulder
Printing: Riso Paradiso
Publisher: Roots to Fruits, Amsterdam 2024
48 pages
(gold ink, looks better irl)
This season of Roots to Fruits explores the building of a self-funded archive and one of its most recurrent themes, namely: Congadas. Far from the academic realm, which had little to no interest in understanding the “African culture in Brazil”, the archive tells many stories. It speaks of a resilient musician looking for resonance and the history of his people, as well as of the underexposed Black inheritance of Brazil’s identity.
In Memórias Congadeiras, Spirito Santo and his son Caio Rosa challenge hundreds of years of Portuguese imperial rule that have dominated the memory-making processes taking place in Brazil’s society, carrying out a collective process of resistance against colonial erasure of the cultural expressions practiced by their ancestors.
The precious intergenerational and intercontinental conversations that preceded this issue have shown us just how much knowledge and Brazilian history is still hidden in personal archives. Roots to Fruits Nº3 Congada is an homage to Spirito Santo’s life’s work, most of which has never been published before. Through revisited and lost memories, and nuances in translation, this unacknowledged history is now made globally accessible.
Contributors: Spirito Santo & Caio Rosa
Editors: Juliana R. Senna & Mirelle van Tulder
Translation: Juliana R. Senna
Final Editing: Tamara Hartman
Editor-in-Chief: Mirelle van Tulder
Graphic Design: Mirelle van Tulder
Printing: Riso Paradiso
Publisher: Roots to Fruits, Amsterdam 2024
48 pages
(gold ink, looks better irl)
Nº2 Champeta, 2023
Launch: 22–24 September 2023, Miss Read Berlin,
Haus der Kulturen der Welt
Roots to Fruits Nº2 Champeta: A Colombian Caribbean Cultural Resistance
In Roots to Fruits Nº2 Champeta, Edna Martinez tells the story of Champeta, an Afro-Colombian music genre based on African rhythms, from which local producers create new sonic, visual and spatial practices, as both an outcome and facilitator of cultures of resistance.
The Picó Sound System of the Colombian Caribbean cities of Cartagena, Barranquilla and Santa Marta have created parties for people of their working-class neighborhoods, in particular for the Afro-Colombian diaspora. The issue explores the musical migration from Africa to Colombia; how it made the Afro-Colombian’s diaspora aware of its origins and colonial past; and how champeta has resisted marginalisation and continuous to break with hegemonic powers.
We’re thrilled to be able to share an essay by Edna Martinez in this issue. Edna is an artist, DJ, and Curator of Music and Sonic Practices at Haus der Kulturen der Welt (HKW), Berlin.
Contributor: Edna Martinez
Editors: Daniel Senior Durán & Mirelle van Tulder
Design and Riso printing: Mirelle van Tulder
Print run: 400
In Roots to Fruits Nº2 Champeta, Edna Martinez tells the story of Champeta, an Afro-Colombian music genre based on African rhythms, from which local producers create new sonic, visual and spatial practices, as both an outcome and facilitator of cultures of resistance.
The Picó Sound System of the Colombian Caribbean cities of Cartagena, Barranquilla and Santa Marta have created parties for people of their working-class neighborhoods, in particular for the Afro-Colombian diaspora. The issue explores the musical migration from Africa to Colombia; how it made the Afro-Colombian’s diaspora aware of its origins and colonial past; and how champeta has resisted marginalisation and continuous to break with hegemonic powers.
We’re thrilled to be able to share an essay by Edna Martinez in this issue. Edna is an artist, DJ, and Curator of Music and Sonic Practices at Haus der Kulturen der Welt (HKW), Berlin.
Contributor: Edna Martinez
Editors: Daniel Senior Durán & Mirelle van Tulder
Design and Riso printing: Mirelle van Tulder
Print run: 400
Roots to Fruits is a magazine about music; its migration and origins, and its role against oppression. The first issue is dedicated to Highlife and its vital role in the struggle for independence and the creation of an African identity during the time of Kwame Nkrumah. It features an article by Dele Adeyemo, and a visual essay by Mirelle with images from the archive of the Wereldmuseum (NL) and the Royal Tropical Institute (KIT).
Dele Adeyemo’s ‘The Modernizing Beat’ rereads the production of space in a modernizing Ghana through highlife, taking the modernist New Town and Tema Harbour as a case study about how the emergence of the ‘worksong’ has governed urbanization in Ghana.
The beat of highlife’s precursor, the worksong, bound the community together in collective life that was attuned to the rhythm of the tides and cycles of the seasons; the evolution of the highlife sound can tell a story of the circulation of cultures, commodities, and political-economic structures condensed into the spatial forms of a modernizing Ghana.
Contributor: Dele Adeyemo
Editing, Design and Riso printing: Mirelle van Tulder
Print run: 400
Dele Adeyemo’s ‘The Modernizing Beat’ rereads the production of space in a modernizing Ghana through highlife, taking the modernist New Town and Tema Harbour as a case study about how the emergence of the ‘worksong’ has governed urbanization in Ghana.
The beat of highlife’s precursor, the worksong, bound the community together in collective life that was attuned to the rhythm of the tides and cycles of the seasons; the evolution of the highlife sound can tell a story of the circulation of cultures, commodities, and political-economic structures condensed into the spatial forms of a modernizing Ghana.
Contributor: Dele Adeyemo
Editing, Design and Riso printing: Mirelle van Tulder
Print run: 400
Through a correspondence add in Jeune Afrique magazine, Ilse Cardoen connected with Elhadji Sall, and they started writing each other letters. In the summer of 1986 she visited Elhadji and his family in Quartier Kebe Der in Guediaway Dakar, Senegal.
Ilse and her son Kwabena asked me to create a book from her personal archive. Delighted to work with this beautiful archive, I chose to use the semi-analog Riso printing technique to recapture the vivid memories present in the photographs. We sadly found out that Elhadji Sall passed away in July 2022. This book is a tribute to him and everyone who gave Ilse Cardoen the ‘Teranga’ of Senegal.
LE SOLEIL 2023
Ilse Cardoen
Art direction, Editing, Design and Riso printing
Mirelle van Tulder
A collaboration between:
Kwabena Appiah-Nti & Mirelle van Tulder
Published by Roots to Fruits
Size: 27 x 37 cm (48 pages)
Print run: 100
AWARDS
- Best Dutch Book Design 2023. Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam
- Zum Photo Book Festival 2023. Instituto Moreira Salles, São Paulo
Ilse and her son Kwabena asked me to create a book from her personal archive. Delighted to work with this beautiful archive, I chose to use the semi-analog Riso printing technique to recapture the vivid memories present in the photographs. We sadly found out that Elhadji Sall passed away in July 2022. This book is a tribute to him and everyone who gave Ilse Cardoen the ‘Teranga’ of Senegal.
LE SOLEIL 2023
Ilse Cardoen
Art direction, Editing, Design and Riso printing
Mirelle van Tulder
A collaboration between:
Kwabena Appiah-Nti & Mirelle van Tulder
Published by Roots to Fruits
Size: 27 x 37 cm (48 pages)
Print run: 100
AWARDS
- Best Dutch Book Design 2023. Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam
- Zum Photo Book Festival 2023. Instituto Moreira Salles, São Paulo