Michael Birchall, Geir Haraldseth (eds.): Good Effort (2017)

A collection of essays discussing social practice and collaboration written on the occasion of forty years of activities of the Rogaland Art Center in Stavanger, Norway.

With essays by Harry Weeks, Marc James Léger, Gregory Sholette, and Charlotte Bik Bandlien.

With an Introduction by Michael Birchall
Publisher Rogaland Kunstsenter, Stavanger, 2017
ISBN 9788299928113
52 pages

Review: Nicholas Norton (Kunstkritikk, 2017, NO).

Exhibition

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Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing: The Mushroom at the End of the World: On the Possibility of Life in Capitalist Ruins (2015)

“Matsutake is the most valuable mushroom in the world—and a weed that grows in human-disturbed forests across the northern hemisphere. Through its ability to nurture trees, matsutake helps forests to grow in daunting places. It is also an edible delicacy in Japan, where it sometimes commands astronomical prices. In all its contradictions, matsutake offers insights into areas far beyond just mushrooms and addresses a crucial question: what manages to live in the ruins we have made?

A tale of diversity within our damaged landscapes, The Mushroom at the End of the World follows one of the strangest commodity chains of our times to explore the unexpected corners of capitalism. Here, we witness the varied and peculiar worlds of matsutake commerce: the worlds of Japanese gourmets, capitalist traders, Hmong jungle fighters, industrial forests, Yi Chinese goat herders, Finnish nature guides, and more. These companions also lead us into fungal ecologies and forest histories to better understand the promise of cohabitation in a time of massive human destruction.

By investigating one of the world’s most sought-after fungi, The Mushroom at the End of the World presents an original examination into the relation between capitalist destruction and collaborative survival within multispecies landscapes, the prerequisite for continuing life on earth.”

Publisher Princeton University Press, Princeton, 2015
ISBN 0691162751, 9780691162751
xii+331 pages

Reviews: Stefan Helmreich (Am Ethnologist, 2016), Eleana J. Kim (Current Anthropology, 2016), Emily Yates-Doerr (Medicine Anthropology Theory, 2016), James P. Verinis (Culture, Agriculture, Food and Environment, 2016), PD Smith (The Guardian, 2017), Joshua A. Bell (Anthropological Q, 2017), William E. O’Brien (AAG Review of Books, 2018), Jason Cons (J Asian Studies, 2016), Jim Igoe (Am Anthropologist, 2016), Eugene N. Anderson (Ethnobiology Letters, 2015), Justine Williams (Transforming Anthropology, 2016), Brandon Bodenstein (Anthropology and Humanism, 2017), Hjorleifur Jonsson (Asia Pacific J Anthropology, 2017), Danya Glabau (J Cultural Economy, 2017), Carmen Victor (Culture Machine, 2017), Sian Sullivan (Dialogues in Human Geography, 2018), Frédérique Aït-Touati (Critique, 2019, FR), Bruno Latour (n.d.).

Publisher
WorldCat

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The Social Life of Artistic Property (2014)

“In the wake of Occupy Wall Street, 12 artists gathered for 20 meetings over two and a half years, discussing property both physical (studios and homes) and artistic. Rather than present raw transcripts of their conversations, the authors individually or collaboratively penned chapters on relevant issues. We get historical case studies alongside a host of topical issues affecting artists’ abilities to work, such as the French droit de suite, the right to resale royalties of artists and their heirs. Michael Mandiberg offers a significant oral history of 135 Rivington Street, a collectively artist-owned building purchased in 1981 by a group of art school alumni, a virtual impossibility in today’s real estate game.” (ArtNews)

By Pablo Helguera, Michael Mandiberg, William Powhida, Amy Whitaker, and Caroline Woolard
Self-published, 2014
Creative Commons BY-SA License
ISBN 9780984475025
110 pages

Project website

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