Armed By Design Pre-Sale

Pre-sale orders are open for Armed By Design, a book forthcoming from Common Notions and Interference Archive about internationalism, solidarity and the legacy of art of the Organization of Solidarity of the Peoples of Asia, Africa, and Latin America (OSPAAAL).

About this Project

The publication is an expanded edition of a smaller 2015 exhibition and book; in the years since, we’ve engaged with conversations and projects that we’re building on in this new edition. This project has also been an opportunity for us to experiment with the method and practice that OSPAAAL followed in their publishing work. While their headquarters in Havana generated an impressive level of content, they also partnered with printers and publishers in other parts of the world to generate other language editions and to print for foreign distribution.

When setting out on the new edition of Armed By Design, we asked ourselves: how can the practice of publishing with others be a way to build political solidarity? To explore this, we’ve developed relationships and connections through el rebozo editorial and tumbalacasa ediciones in Mexico and sobinfluencia edições in Brazil, as well as individuals in Québec and France so that everything in this new edition will be in four languages! This has been an opportunity to ask ourselves: what does political translation look like? How do we collaborate on projects across contexts that have wide resource disparities? How do we continue conversations about OSPAAAL in a way that builds on their commitment to liberation?

• What’s the same in this new edition? This edition reprints earlier essays by Lincoln Cushing and Jesse Maceo Vega-Frey, as well as an interview with artist Jane Norling.
• What’s different? While we’ll be including essays written in 2015 by Sarah Seidman and Nate George, those have been updated by the authors to reflect their more recent research.
• What content is new? We’re excited to include brand new contributions by art historian Sohl Lee on OSPAAAL posters and the North Korean-Cuban Alliance; by Javier Gaston-Greenberg on OSPAAAL influences in Cuban comics; by Ernesto Menendez-Conde contemporary artists reuse of political graphics and interplay with OSPAAAL’s output; by André Mesquita on archives and solidarity; and by curator Joseph Orzal on OSPAAAL’s place in current conversations about organizing and activism.
• This volume also includes a brand new visual index to OSPAAAL’s Tricontinental publications, with an introduction by Lani Hanna and Rob McBride, as well as a new introduction by the editors.

Check out a sneak peak of what’s inside!

How can you help make this happen?

• Preorder your own copy for a discounted price of $35; preorders will ship on December 1, 2024.
• Do you work at a library, museum, or other type of institution that has a budget for purchasing books? Please consider purchasing this title at our $50 institutional preorder price.
• Add a solidarity copy! Purchase your copy for $70 in order to support someone else also receiving an affordable copy. Preorders will ship on December 1, 2024.

Do you work at a bookstore or radical infoshop? We would love your support on this project! Email us at armedbydesignbook@gmail.com if you’re interested in preordering a case of books, or if you’d like to chat about other types of (named) solidarity sponsorship opportunities for this publication.

Right now, pre-orders are only available for shipping within the United States. Stay tuned for international shipping options!