Invitation to Tea compiles 48 tea recipes, stories, and traditions, one for each of the countries that have had citizens extralegally held at the US military prison in Guantánamo. Highlighting the resistance of the people imprisoned there — 780 since 2001 — the recipes are paired with images of porcelain cast Styrofoam cups inscribed with flowers, inspired by stories of these men carving into Styrofoam cups as a form of expression, survival, and resistance. Again and again, these men made a mark, created beauty, and asserted their humanity, undermining the carceral logic of Guantánamo. The tea recipes in this book, which vary from sweet and milky to astringent and spicy, are a celebration of this resistance and traditions passed down from generation to generation — traditions of comfort, medicine, generosity, and solidarity.
CONTRIBUTORS:
Michael Rakowitz, Aliya Hana Hussain, Laura Pitter, and Erika Rappaport
Dimensions: 6.6 x 9.5"
Materials: Cloth Softcover Paperback
Bridge Books
(Irving Park)
LAUNCHED IN 2022, Bridge Books was founded with the belief that books are the vascular systems of democracy, delivering the intellectual oxygen required for a body politic to actively, inclusively, effectively self-govern and thrive. Bridge Books strives to provide that oxygen through publication of interventionist titles in poetry, fiction, nonfiction, visual art, architecture, dance, couture, cinema, and the broad spectrum other artistic disciplines and related interests as defined by the concerns of the Bridge collective of artists, including work by its members, as well as new, relevant and vital voices when encountered.
Aaron Hughes is an artist, curator, organizer, teacher, anti-war activist living in Chicago. Amber Ginsburg is an artist and a lecturer at the University of Chicago in the Department of Visual Arts.