Description
In an economic and cultural context in which public libraries are under threat widely, On Libraries offers tangible evidence of the diverse interrelations between and interventions of artists and libraries which reveal the library as dynamic, shifting and contested spaces of creativity, subversion, refuge, labour, testimony, imagination, choreography, repetition, invitation, inhabitation, solitude and conviviality. Including contributions from Europe, America, Australia and Iran, the issue foregrounds the practices of ‘library performances’, including work which displays and disrupts in equal measure library forms, rituals and technologies; work which acknowledges and takes sustenance from the library as icon of safe space for reflection and intellectual pursuit; work which responds to the materiality of libraries, most particularly books and their para-texts, including marginalia, secret deposits and traces of singular readerly engagement. Performances in libraries offer one lens through which to approach the question of ‘What are libraries for in the 21st century?’; and, further, ‘What might libraries become?’
The Walking Library : Mobilizing books, places, readers and reading
Deirdre (Dee) Heddon, Misha Myers
Tales of Time and Space : Part-home, part-library and a fully functioning escape vehicle
Laura Mansfield
My Life as a Book
Mette Edvardsen
A Structured Space for Reflection : A conversation about The Quiet Volume, a site-specific autoteatro performance for libraries
Ant Hampton, Tim Etchells
Some Patterns of Current / A Choreographic Index (artists’ pages)
Lucy Cash, Sheila Ghelani
‘Educate a Woman and You Educate a Generation’ : Performing geographies of learning, the public library and a pre-school parents’ book club
Joanne Norcup
Performing Refuge/Restoration : The role of libraries in the African American Community – Ferguson, Baltimore and Dorchester
Myron M. Beasley
A Performing Library : Dario Fo’s cultural manifesto
Marco Valleriani
No Nudity, Ducks or Amateur Wrestling OR What happens when you give a live artist the keys to the library?
Liz Clarke
The Library is Open! : Drag queen poetry at the Scottish Poetry Library, 28 January 2016
Iain Morrison
A Place Free of Judgement – A teenage takeover of libraries (‘Why Are You Here Teenager?’) (artist’s pages)
(Ju Row Farr) Blast Theory
Curated Readings : Site-specific art and performance in libraries
Penelope Bartlau
LADA’s Study Room : A case study in five parts
Lois Keidan, Marco Pustianaz, Mary Paterson, Tara Fatehi Irani, Tara Fatehi Irani
Poor Traces of the Room : The Live Archive at the library
Joseph Dunne, Anna Makrzanowska
A Beautiful Living Thing (artist’s pages)
Ross Birrell
Ecolibrary as Bing
Chris Fremantle
Anagnosis of Hysteria : Bibliothèque/Amphithéâtre/Shrine Charcot
Gabriella Daris
Library of Unfinished Texts
Diana Damian Martin
Spivak_rub (artist’s pages)
Jessa Mary Mockridge
Loving Memory : Anamnesis and hypomnesis
Mischa Twitchin
Sound Stakes (review)
Ella Finer
