#radioimagination

[clockshopla]

Pre-order is now available for our new 140-page catalog, Radio Imagination: Artists and Writers in the Archive of Octavia E. Butler. Orders will ship by April 16.

Radio Imagination documents Clockshop’s yearlong celebration of the life and work of science fiction writer Octavia E. Butler.

This limited edition catalog marks the first publication of Clockshop-commissioned poetry and creative nonfiction by Tisa Bryant, Lynell George, Robin Coste Lewis, and Fred Moten, and highlights works in many mediums by Laylah Ali, Malik Gaines and Alexandro Segade, Lauren Halsey, Mendi + Keith Obadike, and Connie Samaras. The catalog also includes an unprecedented number of images from the Octavia E. Butler Collection, courtesy of the @huntingtonlibrary and the Estate of Octavia E. Butler.

Cover photo: Patti Perret

Learn more about Clockshop’s yearlong program here.

[clockshopla]

(Radio Imagination from Clockshop)

Ayana A.H. Jamieson ( @ayanaahj ) is the founder and director of the Octavia E. Butler Legacy Network (@oeblegacy). In December 2016, she led a bus tour through Pasadena and Altadena, California, exploring Butler's hometown and the ways its landscapes and politics influenced her worldview. In this episode, Tom Carroll of Tom Explores Los Angeles (@tomexplores)  talks with Jamieson about this tour and the importance of geographical context in understanding Butler as a writer. 

[momoandernest]

Afternoon Read #octaviabutler #radioimagination #clockshop

[clockshopla]

While planning Radio Imagination, we could not have anticipated how directly Octavia E. Butler’s life and work would speak to the challenges we have faced in 2016, and will continue to face over the next four years. Butler wrote in Parable of the Sower:

We can, Each of us, Do the impossible As long as we can convince ourselves That it has been done before.

Butler willed herself—made herself—into a writer, overcoming impossible odds. We have learned from what she achieved, and take these lessons to heart, especially in this moment. Through Radio Imagination, Clockshop was able to support and celebrate emerging, under-recognized, and established artists while creating the conditions for deep, nuanced conversations about our future. This is fundamentally what Clockshop does.

We support artists. We create programs with intent and curiosity. We respond to current events with care and rigor. We bring diverse groups of people together. We create access—to issues, space, and dialogue.

Join us in this work. Make a one-time (www.bit.ly/2g2xYk9) or recurring (www.bit.ly/2gSIw9V) donation today. Clockshop depends on you. Each donation made before the end of the 2016 calendar year will be matched by a generous anonymous donor.

We look forward to standing strong with you in 2017.

With gratitude,

Clockshop

[huntingtonlibrary]

Opening tonight at the Armory Center for the Arts in Pasadena:

Radio Imagination: Artists in the Archive of Octavia E. Butler

The exhibition is organized by Los Angeles arts organization Clockshop (@clockshopla​) and debuts new commissioned artworks by contemporary artists Laylah Ali, Malik Gaines and Alexandro Segade, Lauren Halsey, Mendi + Keith Obadike, Connie Samaras, and Cauleen Smith, who conducted research in the Octavia E. Butler archive at The Huntington as part of their commissions.

Find more information on the artists here.

installation views pictured: 1, 2: works from Laylah Ali’s Commonplace Drawings series, with text drawn from Butler’s commonplace books 3: detail of Lauren Halsey’s sculpture and it was a natural extension of my dreaming, an interpretation of an imaginary location described by Butler in a notebook in the late 1970s 4, 5: photographs from Connie Samaras’ The Past is Another Planet series, which overlays views of the Huntington Gardens with fragments from the Butler archive

[clockshopla]

Welcome back from the holiday weekend. We hope you're doing something you love today. Photo taken in the Octavia E. Butler papers at The Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens.

[clockshopla]

Has buying one of our Octavia E. Butler totes been on your to-do list?  See to it!

Sale of these totes helps support the Octavia E. Butler Memorial Scholarship for the Clarion Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers' Workshop.

Get one here: http://clockshop.org/project/octavia-e-butler-scholarship-fund/

[clockshopla]

#BecauseOfOctavia, we're reading more science fiction. 

Check out these two reading lists, one by #OctaviaEButler, and the other compiled from Claire L. Evans' and Claire Phillips' suggestions of women in sci fi.

Butler's list was found in her archive at the @huntingtonlibrary.