Living and Sustaining a Creative Life: The Series

Intellect Books has committed to publishing the Living and Sustaining a Creative Life series of books over a 10 year period starting in 2022. As the Senior Editor of this series, Sharon Louden has been selecting editors who will choose contributors to their books, all to be distributed by University of Chicago Press (see below).

To learn more about the series, please visit Intellect’s site.

Cover of Storytellers of the Art Histories, edited by Alpesh Kantilel Patel & Yasmeen Siddiqui

The first in this new series was published in April 2022. Storytellers of Art Histories: Living and Sustaining a Creative Life is an anthology amplifying the voices of the figures reshaping art histories across disciplines and a range of fluid practices.

Edited by Yasmeen Siddiqui & Alpesh Kantilal Patel, these essays amplify the voices of those who are reshaping art histories: not only art historians and curators, but also archivists and artists. At the same time, an overwhelming majority of the contributors have fluid practices, which render these categories moot. There is a special focus on gender, race (including Whiteness), class, sexuality and transnationality – all of which are often marginalized in dominant art histories.

Each individual in this book has provided short, often very personal, contributions indicating how they began to become passionate about their practice. The contributors respond in a multitude of surprising ways, appealing equally to people enmeshed in the field through their work and to those simply interested in the field. The stories you will read take various forms – a letter written to a friend, a revisioned grant application, the pastiche of image and text, children’s fables, interviews, co-authored narrative, memoir, manifesto and apology. A number of the writings perform, through a combination of recollected early memory alongside scholarly research, the roots of the theories they explore through publishing, curating and archival work.

Available now from University of Chicago Press and Amazon.

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“Storytellers of Art’s Histories is distinguished by its effort to transparently perform the mechanics of storytelling as animated in art history. Our commitment to an inter-generational, non-hierarchical approach among the five knowledge-producers (art historian, curator, artist, educator and archivist) that organize the book aims to upend the field’s caste system and open the field up for exploration by a broader base of future practitioners than is usually understood and accepted as possible among undergraduate students looking for fruitful areas of study and work.”

— Alpesh Kantilal Patel

Listen to the Podcast Alpesh produced in Spring 2023, where the following contributors were introduced by his students:

Marsha Meskimmon introduced by Marie G Latham.
Nana Andusei-Poku introduced by Emma Holter.
Regine Basha introduced by Rachel Vorsanger.
Miranda Lash introduced by Mayret Rubenstein.
Amalia Mesa-Baines introduced by Marisa Marte.
Lucy Lippard introduced by Rachael Reynolds.
Gloria Sutton introduced by Camila Damico Medina.
Chitra Ganesh introduced by Emma Krall.

Upcoming publications in the Living and Sustaining a Creative Life series will include the following titles and editors:

The criteria for inclusion in these books is similar to previous books in the series. Generous thought-leaders will be chosen who lead the way in their field and will share inspired stories that will give readers insight into their lives. Louden's hope is that their examples will be replicated, thereby creating unlimited opportunities for others.

Editors will be strongly encouraged to tour their books, as all are intended to be platforms for conversation by cross-pollinating artists and professionals in each field in order to exchange and share opportunities.

All books will be distributed by University of Chicago Press.
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Senior Editor: Sharon Louden