The Library of the Commons: How to live from fire to fire

With Kayfa ta (Maha Maamoun and Ala Younis), Olivier Marboeuf and Anastasia Sosunova. 

 

Kayfa ta – that is, how to? − live from fire to fire, to be baptized or (re)born in real and metaphorical flames? This question, which is also the title of an upcoming book in the Kayfa ta series by Olivier Marboeuf, inspired the evening’s programme. It is a question of survival, individually and collectively, practically and symbolically. The complex theme of survival is explored by Anastasia Sosunova and Olivier Marboeuf, who draw from specific moments in alternative histories of publishing and the arts. 

 

In her research and work, artist Anastasia Sosunova has always been fascinated by the (re)use of printing plates, drawing parallels between early European image reproduction technologies and the visual noise of the digital age. In her opening talk, Sosunova focuses on Lithuania’s underground printing history as a good case in point. She calls attention to the (often invisible) socio-material aspects of printing, like national language, copyrights, workshop structures, supply and demand, and the role of virality and censorship. Research and materials collected from print museums are played off against artistic speculation and hot gossip from the publishing guild. 

 

Fire fuels the performance-lecture of Olivier Marboeuf, who takes the audience on a spoken journey, traversing a sea of tangled stories, fables and archives. It becomes the central motif of Caribbean culture, but also a trace of a fleeting life, the tool of an ecological disaster, the art of a fugitive monument, and the weapon of colonisers who divide and conquer. The storytelling will take shape on an ephemeral map drawn on the wall – a fragile and cacophonous archive of a present where all times converge.  

 

Each intervention is followed by a conversation with Kayfa ta. 

 

This event is part of the cycle The Library of the Commons. The Library of the Commons which brings together an extensive collection of publications related to the histories, ideas and practices of the commons in the arts. As a living and experimental platform to expand, diversify and deepen the cultural commons, the library provides free and unfettered access to independent publications from the Global Majority, which are often difficult to find through conventional distribution networks. Each year in June, the library will also organise an event to showcase the year’s new acquisitions and recommendations and to celebrate the many things books make us do. The Library of the Commons will be housed in the libraries of Kanal and CIVA. 

 

Bios 

 

Kayfa ta 

Kayfa ta is a non-profit publishing initiative that uses the popular format of how-to guides or manuals (how=kayfa, to=ta) to develop skills, tools, thoughts, or sensibilities in response to some of today’s perceived needs. The Kayfa ta books situate themselves in the space between the technical and the reflective, the everyday and the speculative, the instructional and the intuitive, the factual and the fictional, and between the needs of today and tomorrow. Kayfa ta was founded in 2012 by artists and curators Maha Maamoun (Egypt) and Ala Younis (Jordan), who continue to shape its course. 

 

 

Anastasia Sosunova 

Anastasia Sosunova is a Vilnius-based artist who holds a BA in Graphic Art and an MA in Sculpture from the Vilnius Academy of Arts. Her multidisciplinary practice comprises video, installation, sculpture and graphic art. It explores the connections between signs and faith in contemporary society, as well as manifestations of magical thinking and the mobilisation of communities. Sosunova follows personal stories and material gestures as they become entangled in larger narratives: tales of rising and falling communities and identities, shaped by innumerable contexts and interactions. Her work has been exhibited at leading art venues around the world, as well as major biennials, including Gwangju, Kaunas and Lyon. More recently, Sosunova presented solo and duo exhibitions at KOHTA in Helsinki, the Contemporary Art Centre in Vilnius, Galeria Arsenał in Białystok, eastcontemporary in Milan, and the Cell project space in London. 

 

Olivier Marboeuf 

Olivier Marboeuf is an author-storyteller, artist, independent curator, cultural theorist and 

film producer from Guadeloupe. In the early 1990s, he and author Yvan Alagbé founded éditions Amok (now Frémok), a research-based comics publisher that launched the legendary Parisian literary café Autarcic Comix. From 2004 to 2018, he was the artistic director of Espace Khiasma in Paris, a visual arts and living literature centre dedicated to minority representations, which helped introduce postcolonial theories to the French art scene. From 2013 to 2024, he was also a film producer at Spectre Productions, producing some sixty artists’ films and documentaries. He currently divides his time between writing, drawing and supporting collaborative art practices. Marboeuf is a founding member of the Réseau Indépendant des Travailleur-euses et Acteur-ices de l’Art (RITAA) in Guadeloupe; a member of RAYO, an experimental pedagogy programme in the Greater Caribbean; and a member of the international board of the Akademie der Künste der Welt de Cologne. His publications include the essay Suites Décoloniales : s’enfuir de la plantation, the poetry collection Les Matières de la Nuit, (Éditions du Commun, 2022) and the theatrical text La Nuit juste avant le feu (Editions Atlantiques déchaînés, 2025).