In this critical biography, Omar Kholeif offers an introductory field guide to Magda Stawarska's practice. Structured as a travelogue, Kholeif moves with Stawarska along various journeys, allowing readers to venture from the streets of Istanbul to the canals of Venice and across the waters of Zanzibar. The book concludes with an afterword by Turner Prize-winning artist
Lubaina Himid CBE RA.
Imagine/otherwise presents critical biographies of underrepresented
queer, non-binary, or
female-identifying artists. Edited by
Omar Kholeif, the series emphasizes the concept of "female worlding" with books that serve as field guides into previously unexplored, overlooked, or inaccessible artistic lives. The overall proposition of the series (to "imagine" a world "otherwise") stems from the desire to find a different way of writing and reading about art. Can art be examined unreservedly, unburdened of the limits imposed by the dominant hand of hegemony?
Current editorial advisors for the series include
Skye Arundhati Thomas, Zoe Butt, Carla Chammas, Alison Hearst, and Sarah Perks.
Omar Kholeif (born in Cairo, lives and works in Chicago and London) is a writer, curator, editor, and broadcaster. He has written extensively on art in a global context, focusing on art that intersects with the Internet, as well as works of art from emerging geographic territories that have yet to be seen in the mainstream. He is the author and or editor of over two-dozen books and his writing has appeared in
The Guardian,
Wired,
frieze, and
Artforum,
Mousse, among numerous publications. Media organs such as,
The New York Times, BBC,
Financial Times,
The Wall Street Journal,
GQ,
The Economist,
The Art Newspaper,
Vice,
The New Scientist, and others, have profiled his work.
Since the 2000s, Polish-born, UK-based artist Magda Stawarska (born 1976) has explored the threshold of memory, the sanctioned shape of history, and the active experience of listening. Through sound and performance, moving image, photography, painting, and printmaking, the artist unfolds overlooked and contested narratives of the past through her practice of "inner listening."
Stawarska's distinct approach to artmaking often begins with explorations of cities. Traversing self-directed routes, the artist has often been compared to a flaneur—moving through each site, cultivating a rhythmic score that reveals a densely layered urban topography. These situated scenes become the basis for a distinct form of language—one of conjured imaginaries. The artist and her carefully chosen collaborators unbuckle the seams of the aural landscape, using personal reflection and language, which the artist uses to create installations that constellate active feelings.
Magda Stawarska develops a long-term collaboration with
Lubaina Himid on sound installation and printmaking.
