Watering a Black Garden Reading- & Playlist

On view in OSCAM from March 6th until May 6th

Watering a Black Garden is a group exhibition that reimagines joy as a radical practice of tending and becoming. It centers Black and Brown women as visionaries of abundance, framing joy as an intentional practice of care in Black femme experiences. In a world where narratives about Black and Brown womanhood are too often defined by trauma and resilience alone, this exhibition shifts the focus toward restorative practice, softness, and possibility.

To accompany the exhibition, we invited our artists to share the books and songs that inspire their thinking and creative practice. Together with personal selections from the OSCAM and ARTNOIR teams, this has resulted in a carefully curated reading list and playlist that reflect the ideas and influences woven throughout the works on view.

All featured book titles are physically available at OBA Bijlmerplein, where visitors are encouraged to continue exploring the stories and perspectives that resonate across the exhibition.

ARTNOIR x OSCAM

This exhibition emerges from a dynamic collaboration between OSCAM and ARTNOIR, a New York–based global cultural platform dedicated to supporting artists of color. Grounded in a shared commitment to amplifying underrepresented voices, the partnership opens a transatlantic exchange that explores identity, history, and creativity through the lived experiences of women of color. The collaboration invites audiences in Amsterdam to encounter work that is transformative, urgent, and radiant.

The Watering a Black Garden Reading List

ARTNOIR x OSCAM Picks

1. Sisters of the Yam: Black Women and Self-Recovery – bell hooks
A cornerstone text on healing, joy, and emotional flourishing, core to the exhibition’s ethos.

2. Wayward Lives, Beautiful Experiments – Saidiya Hartman (Available at OBA Bijlmerplein)
A lyrical, archival reimagining of young Black women crafting their own freedom.

3. Black Futures – Kimberly Drew & Jenna Wortham (eds.) (Available at OBA Bijlmerplein)
A vibrant anthology celebrating contemporary Black creativity, presence, and futurity across the diaspora.

4. Zami: A New Spelling of My Name – Audre Lorde
Lorde’s genre-defying biomythography that anchors queer lineage, becoming, and self-definition.

5. In the Wake: On Blackness and Being – Christina Sharpe
Essential for understanding memory, care, and the ongoing work of tending to Black life.

6. Emergent Strategy – adrienne maree brown (Available at OBA Bijlmerplein)
A reflection on collective growth, transformation, and tending to community, resonant with the garden metaphor.

7. As We Rise: Photography from the Black Atlantic – Mónica de la Torre, Mark Sealy, et al. (Available at OBA Bijlmerplein)
A powerful photographic survey connecting Black communities across global geographies.

8 . Nudes – Shaniqwa Jarvis
Intimate photographic studies of vulnerability, presence, and interiority from one of the exhibition artists.

9. The Black Interior – Elizabeth Alexander
Insightful essays on radiance, cultural memory, and the interior landscapes of Black life

10. Na verzet komt (r)evolutie – Clarice Gargard
A sharp reflection on activism, imagination, and building new futures through collective resistance and care.

11. The Black Joy Project – Kleaver Cruz
A visual and narrative celebration of Black joy as resistance, healing, and everyday affirmation.

12. The Female Search for Love – bell hooks
An exploration of love, intimacy, and emotional truth that centers Black women’s inner lives and desires.

13. Spirits Come From Water – Ehime Ora
A poetic meditation on ancestry, spirituality, and diasporic memory that echoes the exhibition’s themes of becoming and flow.

14. Sisterhood Heals: The Transformative Power of Healing in Community – Joy Harden Bradford
A guide to collective healing that foregrounds community care as a pathway toward restoration and empowerment.

15. Meisje, vrouw, anders – Bernardine Evaristo
An interwoven portrait of Black womanhood that celebrates multiplicity, voice, and intergenerational connection.

Rachel Marsil’s Picks

16. The Practice of Diaspora: Literature, Translation, and the Rise of Black Internationalism – Brent Hayes Edward

17. Afropea: A Post-Western and Post-Racist Utopia – Leonora Miano

18. Primitive art in Civilized places – Sally Price (Available at OBA Bijlmerplein)

19. Make Do and Mend – Lubaina Himid

20. The African Lookbook: A Visual History of 100 Years of African Women’s – Catherine McKinley (Available at OBA Bijlmerplein)

21. Photography: Race, Rights and Representation – Mark Sealy

22. What people wear in Kenya, Kodoji Press, Baden 2019 – Philippine Chaumont, Agathe Zaerpour

Aline Motta’s Picks

23. Performances of spiral time – Leda Maria Martins

24. Three Stories of Forgetting – Djaimilia Pereira de Almeida (Available at OBA Bijlmerplein)

25. Undrowned, Black Feminist Lessons from Marine Mammals – Alexis Pauline Gumbs

26. Water is a Time Machine – Aline Motta

Jeanette Ehlers’ Picks

27. Slavetrilogien – Thorkild Hansen

28. Lose Your Mother – Saidiya Hartman

29. Mulatten (The Mulatto) – H.C. Andersen

Maty Biayenda’s Picks

‘If I had to choose two books that I often come back to and influenced both myself and my work it would be these two’

30. Black on Both Sides – C. Riley Snorton

31. Fétichisme et curiosité – Emily Notéris

Nengi Omuku’s Pick

‘This is the book I’m currently reading. While working in the studio, I often also listen to exhibition catalogue audiobooks such as those on Lubaina Himid and Noah Davis.’

32. The Garden Against Time – Olivia Laing (Available at OBA Bijlmerplein)

Bernice Mulenga’s Picks

33. Objects of Beauty – Joy Gregory

34. BRAZILIAN STREET GIRLS, (INVISIBLE LIVES) – Leticia Valverdes

35. For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide / When the Rainbow Is Enuf (Available at OBA Bijlmerplein)

Shaniqwa Jarvis’ Picks

‘I tend to re-read things and these books I’ve gone back to while working and thinking about permanence and creative legacy.’

36. The Mothers – Brit Bennett

37. Homegoing – Yaa Gyasi

38. The Water Bearers – Sasha Bonet

39. Death of the Party (essay) – Raven Leilani

Ufuoma Essi’s Picks

40. Bodies in Dissent – Daphne Brooks

41. Freedom Is a Constant Struggle: Ferguson, Palestine, and the Foundations of a Movement – Angela Davis

42. The Black Atlantic: Modernity and Double Consciousness – Paul Gilroy