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October 2022, English
11×16 cm, 96 pages, 50 color and 8 b/w ill., Softcover with flaps
ISBN 978-1-915609-07-6
Series
Imagine Otherwise
Design
Simon Josebury, SecMoCo
Copublisher
artPost21
Status
Available
Omar Kholeif

Sonia Balassanian

Edited by Rebecca Morrill

Imagine Otherwise is an anthology of books on queer, non-binary, or female-identifying artists who have produced a substantial body of work but may have no publication concerning their art or life in print at the time of commissioning.

The overall proposition, to “imagine” a world “otherwise,” stems from the desire to find a different way of looking, writing, and reading about art.

Can art be examined unreservedly, unburdened of the limits imposed by any perceived “dominant hand” of hegemony?

In the first volume of the series, author, Dr. Omar Kholeif reveals a deeply personal portrait of Iranian Armenian American artist Sonia Balassanian. Weaving through poetry, memoir, and historical anecdote, Kholeif explodes the edges of the New York art world, tracing the contours of Balassanian’s world.

Sonia Balassanian was born to a family of Armenian heritage, in Arak, near Isfahan, Iran in 1942. Uninspired by the rigid curriculum in which she was instructed, the young artist began her creative pursuits by writing poetry. After her marriage to Edward Balassanian at the age of twenty-three, she moved with her husband to the US to study fine art, where she principally lives and works to this day. With a career spanning more than five decades, Sonia Balassanian’s art is celebrated for its political fervor, as it is for its lyricism, and its occasional whimsy, which sparkles despite the political chaos and turmoil that has surrounded her.

Series
Imagine Otherwise is an anthology of books on queer, non-binary, or female-identifying artists who have produced a substantial body of work but may have no publication concerning their art or life in print at the time of commissioning. The series—a living archive and a modular score emphasizes the concept of "female worlding" at its center, presenting books that serve as field guides into artistic lives that remain unexplored or inaccessible. The overall proposition, to “imagine” a world “otherwise,” stems from the desire to find a different way of looking, writing, and reading about art. To consciously create a form of publishing that allows art to be examined unreservedly, unburdened of the limits imposed by any perceived “dominant hand” of hegemony. Imagine if every book on art was authored or narrated via the distinct contours of the artist’s work and/or biography—the writer and artist guiding the reader through a personal lens, in their distinct voice, rarely conforming to a singular style. Each book in the series is conceived as an exploratory document and collaborative composition. Together, author and artist, dead or alive, propose acts of worldbuilding—fulfilling a dream to explode the sanctioned modes through which art is experienced in the collective imagination. (Commissioning Editors: Dr. Omar Kholeif and Caroline Schneider. Series Editor: Dr. Omar Kholeif. Editorial Advisory Group: Skye Arundhati-Thomas, Zoe Butt, Carla Chammas, Alison Hearst, and Professor Sarah Perks. Imagine Otherwise is a collaboration with www.artpost21.com.)
Imagine Otherwise