PROJECT DESCRIPTION

Forecast Form: Art in the Caribbean Diaspora, 1990s–Today is a global survey that traces the circulation of forms, materials, and ideas from the 1990s to the present; positioning Caribbean art as a diasporic, fugitive phenomenon. Beginning during a decade marked by geopolitical transformation, the publication follows the movement of artists and their work across the Americas and Europe, foregrounding how identity and place are continually reconfigured through displacement, migration, and exchange.

The catalogue’s design references trade winds and oceanic currents: ecological forces that carry histories of colonialism, imperialism, and slavery, while also enabling the transmission of culture, language, and memory. The cover scatters the publication’s title; paragraph breaks in the book’s essays, roundtable conversation, and plate sections move inconsistently and organically, with each paragraph beginning where the previous one ends.

Movement is embedded throughout the book. Page numbers drift across spreads, and then back again; footnotes push and pull against the essay grid; and a two-part roundtable frames the book, beginning before the title page and extending beyond the copyright page. Materially, black surfaces—used in the binding cloth and on section dividers—reference electrical blackouts, signaling both rupture and resilience.

The dividers feature Sub-marine, a typeface drawn by Gerardo Ismael Madera in collaboration with Nat Pyper that recreates Caribbean poet and scholar Kamau Brathwaite’s experimental “Sycorax Video Style.” Drawing upon early word processor–generated forms, Brathwaite’s visually distinct poems reference an “underwater” Caribbean unity; fractured, wave-like, and continuous across visible and invisible currents.

BOOK INFORMATION

Trim Size: 8.3 x 10.8 inches

Number of Pages: 288

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Typefaces: Bradford by Laurenz Brunner for Lineto Type Foundry; Sub-marine by Gerardo Ismael Madera in collaboration with Nat Pyper (custom)

CREDIT INFORMATION

Creative Director: Cheryl Towler Weese

Art Director:

Book Designer: Cheryl Towler Weese and Meredith Barone, Studio Blue; Nat Pyper, formerly of Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago

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Other Credits: Carla Acevedo-Yates - Marilyn and Larry Fields Curator, MCA Chicago; Iris Colburn - Curatorial Assistant, MCA Chicago; Isabel Casso - former Marjorie Susman Curatorial Fellow, MCA Chicago; Nolan Jimbo - Marjorie Susman Curatorial Fellow, MCA Chicago; Kelsey Campbell-Dollaghan - Director of Content Strategy, MCA Chicago; Tyler Laminack - Editor, MCA Chicago; Katie Levi - Manager of Rights and Images, MCA Chicago; Gabrielle Banks - Rights and Images Assistant, MCA Chicago; Mary Delmonico - Publisher, DelMonico Books; Karen Farquhar - Production Director, DelMonico Books; Matthew R. Christensen - Copyeditor; Professional Graphics, Rockford, Illinois - Color separations

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