2020-2023

B.O.O.K (Building Our Own Knowledge) was a Black-led arts collective which offered how to do nothing residencies, art commissions, and curatorial interventions in the West Midlands, UK and online such as B.O.OK podcast or B.O.O.K book club.

Building.Our.Own.Knowledge (B.O.O.K) was a co-created cloud for interrogating, finding, making, and sharing experiences and knowledge emanating from Black artists in particular. Initiated by its artist-curator n:u (fka melissandre varin) with initial R&D support from Coventry Biennial (2020-2021), and later funded independently by the National Community Lottery Fund (2021-2023).

The communal project was an invitation to rethink and remake knowledge and culture on our own terms. B.O.O.K (r)evolved through radical sharing, caring and disrupting, by using and developing non-extractive collective mechanisms for reinventing the everyday as a political space for collective healing and liberation.

The soft infrastructure of B.O.O.K was supported by a self-organised working group composed of 9 Black artists, writers, researchers, facilitators and curators including: Antonio Roberts (advising and designing), Mojere Ajayi-Egunjobi (advising and designing), Jae Tallawah (lead producer), Samiir Saunders(leading on many bits with the heart), Sym Mendez (artist-liaison and lead facilitator), Last Mafuba (advising and designing), Hannah Adereti (research), Ayesha Jones (photographer and B.O.O.K legacy publucation), and artist-curator n:u (fka melissandre varin).