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whatlinareads's review
hopeful
reflective
medium-paced
4.0
I finished this about a week ago and still struggle to put my thoughts about it into words. Imagining Otherwise is a bit like a scrapbook, only without the graphic part. In a very vague sense, it simply explores what the system we currently live in has taken from us and what it could be like instead. In fragments of various sorts, Olufemi invites us to imagine through reflective arguments as well as bits of prose poetry.
Her foundation in Black feminist scholarship, activism and community work always shines through – which was perhaps also what I enjoyed the most about this piece. As my efforts to describe my reading experience are evidently in vain, I reckon I’ll just leave it at saying that I found Experiments in Imagining Otherwise very fascinating despite its fragmented and vague style. What I’ll take from this book is the reminder that everything doesn’t have to be this way and that the first step towards differently designed societal systems is to dare to imagine otherwise.
als_adventures's review
challenging
hopeful
informative
reflective
slow-paced
3.0
I just don’t know. But i think no.
shukri's review
challenging
hopeful
informative
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
4.25
“I am trying to inflate the material”
an expansive text that defies categories (prose, poetry, manifesto, fiction/non fiction), Lola Olufemi demands more from herself and us all.
I will carry the ‘otherwise’ with me. the otherwise isn’t prescriptive or final; instead a springboard, launchpad, a site of possibility that moves outwards and inwards and circularly. Lola, with the ‘otherwise’, makes legible a somatic desire/impulse, an affective politics so that is the epitome of black feminist love politics, that opens up language to the same rhythm as our imaginations.
The ‘otherwise’, and what this text does generally, is demand an imagination of us that makes us long to touch the intangible.
My favourite experiment was narrative consistency, in which she took an photo of Olive Morris and imagined what the photograph can expand to tell us about that incident. The archive isn’t rigid or homogenous; instead fragments that leave gaps of possibility. Olufemi explored this so beautifully and I was taken aback.
an expansive text that defies categories (prose, poetry, manifesto, fiction/non fiction), Lola Olufemi demands more from herself and us all.
I will carry the ‘otherwise’ with me. the otherwise isn’t prescriptive or final; instead a springboard, launchpad, a site of possibility that moves outwards and inwards and circularly. Lola, with the ‘otherwise’, makes legible a somatic desire/impulse, an affective politics so that is the epitome of black feminist love politics, that opens up language to the same rhythm as our imaginations.
The ‘otherwise’, and what this text does generally, is demand an imagination of us that makes us long to touch the intangible.
My favourite experiment was narrative consistency, in which she took an photo of Olive Morris and imagined what the photograph can expand to tell us about that incident. The archive isn’t rigid or homogenous; instead fragments that leave gaps of possibility. Olufemi explored this so beautifully and I was taken aback.
btzab's review
4.0
The writing style was new to me, uncomfortable at first, particularly the pauses throughout. However, then I wanted them...
The book has lots of repeated phrases from some other places, but maybe that is the intention of these experiments which made me think and write while reading.
Read it with a pen at hand.
The book has lots of repeated phrases from some other places, but maybe that is the intention of these experiments which made me think and write while reading.
Read it with a pen at hand.
dean_'s review
emotional
hopeful
inspiring
lighthearted
reflective
relaxing
fast-paced
5.0
Wonderful and necessary, thoroughly enjoyed this