Africa State of Mind gathers together the work of an emergent generation of photographers from across Africa, including both the Maghreb and sub-Saharan Africa. It is both a summation of new photographic practice from the last decade and an exploration of how contemporary photographers from the continent are exploring ideas of 'Africanness' to reveal Africa to be a psychological space as much as a physical territory - a state of mind as much as a geographical place. Dispensing with the western colonial view of Africa in purely geographic or topographic terms, Ekow Eshun presents Africa State of Mind in four thematic parts: Hybrid Cities; Inner Landscapes; Zones of Freedom; and Myth and Memory. Each theme, introduced by a text by Eshun, presents selections of work by a new wave of African photographers who are looking both outward and inward: capturing life among the sprawling cities and multitudinous conurbations of the continent, turning the legacy of the continent's history into the source of resonant new myths and dreamscapes and exploring questions of gender, sexuality and identity. Each of the photographers seeks to capture the experience of what it means, and how it feels, to live in Africa today.

The Time is Always Now: Artists Reframe the Black Figure edited by Ekow Eshun celebrates flourishing Black artists whose work illuminates the richness, beauty and complexity of Black life. ---------- "There is never a time in the future in which we will work out our salvation. The challenge is in the moment, the time is always now." - James Baldwin ---------- The Time is Always Now: Artists Reframe the Black Figure assembles contemporary African diasporic artists working in the UK and US whose practice foregrounds the Black figure. Edited and with texts by Ekow Eshun, and original essays by Bernardine Evaristo, Esi Edugyan and Dorothy Price. Published to coincide with the exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery, London, this publication explores and celebrates contemporary Black artists internationally who work within Black figuration. This visual and beautifully produced book examines contemporary figurative artworks against a backdrop of heightened cultural visibility. Within this context, its collected paintings, drawings and sculptures take on a dual role as the accomplished work of individual artists and as a collective assertion of Black presence. Through a three-part structure containing detailed artist profiles and stunningly reproduced artworks, the publication examines Black figuration as a means to address the absence and distortion of Black presence within Western art history. Profiled artists include Hurvin Anderson, Michael Armitage, Jordan Casteel, Njideka Akunyili Crosby, Noah Davis, Godfried Donkor, Kimathi Donkor, Denzil Forrester, Lubaina Himid, Claudette Johnson, Titus Kaphar, Kerry James Marshall, Toyin Ojih Odutola, Chris Ofili, Jennifer Packer, Thomas J. Price, Nathaniel Mary Quinn, Lorna Simpson, Amy Sherald, Henry Taylor and Barbara Walker.

A mesmerizing, continent-spanning survey of the most dynamic scenes in contemporary African photography, and an introduction to the creative figures who are making it happen. Africa State of Mind gathers together the work of an emergent generation of photographers from across Africa, including both the Maghreb and sub-Saharan Africa. It is both a summation of new photographic practice from the last decade and an exploration of how contemporary photographers from the continent are exploring ideas of 'Africanness' to reveal Africa to be a psychological space as much as a physical territory - a state of mind as much as a geographical place. Dispensing with the western colonial view of Africa in purely geographic or topographic terms, Ekow Eshun presents Africa State of Mind in four thematic parts: Hybrid Cities; Inner Landscapes; Zones of Freedom; and Myth and Memory. Each theme, introduced by a text by Eshun, presents selections of work by a new wave of African photographers who are looking both outward and inward: capturing life among the sprawling cities and multitudinous conurbations of the continent, turning the legacy of the continent's history into the source of resonant new myths and dreamscapes and exploring questions of gender, sexuality and identity. Each of the photographers seeks to capture the experience of what it means, and how it feels, to live in Africa today.

Reframing the Black Figure is a visual giftbook that features a selection of contemporary artists exploring Black figuration through beautifully reproduced works and artists quotes. What happens when Black artists depict Black figures? What art does this produce, and what worlds of possibility does this reveal? - Ekow Eshun Reframing the Black Figure showcases more than 20 of the most important Black figurative artists working in the UK and US today. This visual giftbook introduces readers to the field of Black figuration by highlighting a selection of key works from the National Portrait Gallery exhibition, The Time is Always Now: Artists Reframe the Black Figure. Readers will encounter contemporary Black artists producing beautiful, urgent artworks that presents the Black form with nuance and depth. Richly illustrated with artworks and visual details, interspersed with illuminating quotations from contemporary and historical Black thinkers, poets and artists, this accessible publication offers an opportunity for readers to experience some of the most exciting artists depicting the Black form. Within this context, these artworks take on a dual role, as the accomplished work of individual artists on the one hand, and as a collective assertion of Black presence on the other. Featured artists include Hurvin Anderson, Michael Armitage, Jordan Casteel, Njideka Akunyili Crosby, Noah Davis, Godfried Donkor, Kimathi Donkor, Denzil Forrester, Lubaina Himid, Claudette Johnson, Titus Kaphar, Kerry James Marshall, Toyin Ojih Odutola, Chris Ofili, Jennifer Packer, Thomas J. Price, Nathaniel Mary Quinn, Lorna Simpson, Amy Sherald, Henry Taylor and Barbara Walker.

Published to coincide with an exhibition at the Hayward Gallery, London, this is an expressive exploration of Black popular culture at its most wildly imaginative, artistically ambitious and politically urgent. In the Black Fantastic assembles art and imagery from across the African diaspora that embraces ideas of the mythic and the speculative. Neither Afrofuturism nor Magic Realism, but inhabiting its own universe, In the Black Fantastic brings to life a cultural movement that conjures otherworldly visions out of the everyday Black experience - and beyond - looking at how speculative fictions in Black art and culture are boldly reimagining perspectives on race, gender, identity and the body in the 21st century. Transcending time, space and genre to span art, design, fashion architecture, film, literature and popular culture from African myth to future fantasies and beyond, this vital, timely and compelling publication is an expressive exploration of Black popular culture at its most wildly imaginative, artistically ambitious and politically urgent.

Chibụike Ụz�ma (b. 1992, Port Harcourt, Nigeria), is a multidisciplinary artist working with painting, photography, drawing, text and video, living and working in New Haven, Connecticut. Documented here are sixteen of the artist’s large paintings rendered in oil and acrylic or acrylic spray paint on canvas, made in 2022. Accompanying an exhibition of the same name at Simon Lee Gallery, London, the first solo exhibition of his work in the UK, this publication is the fourth pillar of a collaborative project by the artist, setting his own paintings in relation to video and audio works by Edward Owens and João Orecchia respectively. Ụz�ma works with non-linear narratives, using a mix of painting languages that dodges and weaves the liminal spaces between representation and meaning. Fragments of stencilled letters jolt against textured pools of paint, and diaphanous figures are cropped by cinematic horizons. Comprising colourful, abstruse portraiture against stark black and white backgrounds, the paintings in 'To Kick a Stone' are deeply suggestive, but ultimately formalist explorations of shape and composition. An introduction by Kat Sapera, Director of Simon Lee Gallery, draws upon her first encounters with the artist and details the influence of philosophy and the act of looking. Sapera brings the collaboration with Orecchia and Owens to the forefront of her discussion while touching on Ụz�ma’s making processes. In an essay by Ụz�ma, the artist himself writes lyrically upon subjects including poetry, religion, good and evil, in order to bring a number of key concepts that circle his work into the field of view. Essays by Bishupal Limbu, Associate Professor of English at Portland State University, and by Carlos Valladares, writer and critic, help amass a portrait of an artist whose enquiry is informed by film, philosophy and pictorial language – with the layering, unravelling and opening-up of narrative as a core focus. Their writing brings key art historical figures into dialogue with Ụz�ma’s work. Lastly, the artist appears in conversation with writer and curator Ekow Eshun. This frank and illuminating conversation provides insight into the artist’s painting practice, previous series of works and intentions, while also discussing issues of identity and Blackness. Their interview further reflects on past exhibitions, connections with other key artists and Ụz�ma’s recent MFA studies at Yale. Published on the occasion of the exhibition Chibụike Ụz�ma – To Kick a Stone, 19 January – 25 February 2023, Simon Lee Gallery, London. Edited by Kat Sapera, designed by Joe Gilmore, printed by Pressision, Leeds and co-published in 2023 by Simon Lee Gallery and Anomie Publishing, London. Chibụike Ụz�ma (b. 1992, Port Harcourt, Nigeria), is a multidisciplinary artist working with painting, photography, drawing, text and video, living and working in New Haven, Connecticut. Ụz�ma received his BFA from the University of Benin, an MFA from Yale University School of Art and was awarded the Francis Greenburger Fellowship in 2018. His work is included in the public collections of Kistefos Museum, Jevnaker, Norway; Didi Museum, Lagos, Nigeria and Fotohof Salzburg, Austria. Recent exhibitions include Pace, New York, NY (2021); Lyles & King, New York, NY (2021); Everard Read, Cape Town, South Africa (2019); Florida Museum of Photographic Arts, Florida, FL (2019); Circa Gallery, Cape Town, South Africa (2017); and D-Contemporary Gallery, London, UK (2017).

Candid and personal, dazzling with color and immediacy, this first and only monograph of a rising star of the photography scene features work from major labels and magazines, outtakes from shoots, and newly commissioned texts by Edward Enninful and Ekow Eshun on the importance of authentic diversity behind and in front of the camera. From major portraits of the likes of Kendall Jenner, FKA Twigs, and Tyler, the Creator to cover shoots for leading magazines such as Time, Rolling Stone, and Garage, Campbell Addy has quickly become one of the most in-demand photographers of his generation. The book opens with a foreword by British Vogue's editor-in-chief, Edward Enninful, discussing the powerful intersection of photography, race, beauty, and representation. This is followed by a broad selection of Addy's striking photographs, which range from prominent fashion and magazine commissions to candid portraiture. Featuring recognizable cover shots alongside unpublished outtakes and unseen photography, viewers are afforded insight into Addy's creative process on set. Quotes from leading Black figures including Naomi Campbell and Nadine Ijewere are woven between Addy's striking imagery, in which these trailblazing Black creatives reflect on the first time they felt seen in their industry. The book closes with a deeper exploration of Addy's more personal imagery and influences, paying tribute to the heritage of Black photographers through the work of Ajamu and James Barnor. In conversation with curator and writer Ekow Eshun, Addy balances his own experiences as a queer, Black photographer who left his Jehovah's Witness family home at sixteen with broader questions of identity, intimacy, and art which face many creatives today. Charged with energy, compassion and authenticity, this inaugural monograph signals a major talent whose influence and stature will only grow with time.

Several different domestic and industrial demands for starch rank this biopolymer among essential biomaterials relevant to economic advancement globally. Starch is widely applied in food, textile, pharmaceutical, paper, synthetic polymer industries and plays prominent role even in technological developments. Starch serves as the primary energy reserve in plants. This book expound on the effects of sucrose on the physicochemical properties of acetylated corn starch.Starch isolated from corn varieties including Abeleehi; Dorke SR; Obaatanpa; Okomasa are subjected to chemical modification using acetic anhydride. Acetylation treatment and addition of sucrose substantially changes the physicochemical properties of corn starches. The extent of change induced is dependent on the concentration of sucrose present. Sucrose reduces retrogradation, peak viscosity, pasting stability, water binding capacity and gelation of acetylated corn starches. On the other hand, swelling power and solubility are increased. The higher the sugar concentration, the greater the effect of increase or decrease on a particular physicochemical property. Varietal differences also accounted for the changes observed.

At the age of thirty-three, Ekow Eshun--born in London to African-born parents--travels to Ghana in search of his roots. He goes from Accra, Ghana's cosmopolitan capital city, to the storied slave forts of Elmina, and on to the historic warrior kingdom of Asante. During his journey, Eshun uncovers a long-held secret about his lineage that will compel him to question everything he knows about himself and where he comes from. From the London suburbs of his childhood to the twenty-first century African metropolis, Eshun's is a moving chronicle of one man's search for home, and of the pleasures and pitfalls of fashioning an identity in these vibrant contemporary worlds.

Richly imaginative and powerfully empathetic, an intimate portrait of five remarkable Black men, and a meditation on race, estrangement and the search for home.

In the western imagination, a Black man is always a stranger. Outsider, foreigner, intruder, alien. One who remains associated with their origins irrespective of how far they have travelled from them. One who is not an individual in their own right but the representative of a type.

What kind of performance is required for a person to survive this condition? And what happens beneath the mask?

In answer, Ekow Eshun conjures the voices of five very different men. Ira Aldridge: nineteenth century actor and playwright. Matthew Henson: polar explorer. Frantz Fanon: psychiatrist and political philosopher. Malcolm X: activist leader. Justin Fashanu: million-pound footballer. Each a trailblazer in his field. Each haunted by a sense of isolation and exile. Each reaching for a better future.

Ekow Eshun tells their stories with breathtaking lyricism and empathy, capturing both the hostility and the beauty they experienced in the world. And he locates them within a wider landscape of Black art, culture, history and politics which stretches from Africa to Europe to North America and the Caribbean. As he moves through this landscape, he maps its thematic contours and fault lines, uncovering traces of the monstrous and the fantastic, of exile and escape, of conflict and vulnerability, and of the totemic central figure of the stranger.