The Library of Unwritten Books

[squirmelia]

The Library of Unwritten Books is currently being displayed on shelves at the Aspex Gallery (and various other places) in Portsmouth. The library's collection stems from descriptions about books that people have said they would like to write. These ideas were transcribed and then added to the library as a small book. Some of the books I read were from Portsmouth's Chinese Community, and others had originated from London. They varied in size from about 2 lines to about 8 pages, and a lot of the books just seemed to contain people's memories, which were not always that interesting. I preferred the books that sounded more fantastical, the books that sounded as if they were by children - short tales of ballerina colouring books, animals, and strange happenings.

Here is a part of Book 001, named "The End", by an anonymous person:

'The book would be red and white. That's all I know. The colour of snow. I don't think it would have pictures.

And yes, it is about isolation. Maybe the whiteness is the blank page. Maybe it's the blank page.'

Comments

[fred-smith.livejournal.com]

Thats such a cool project. I'm impressed.

[squirmelia.livejournal.com]

It's touring the country, so maybe it will make its way to where you live at some point!

[fred-smith.livejournal.com]

England?

[squirmelia.livejournal.com]

I meant England, since your LJ info indicates that you are in Nottingham? If not, maybe the books will circulate the world, you can never quite tell with these things.

[fred-smith.livejournal.com]

Oh, excuse my ignorance. I didn't realise that you were English. Thats quite a major oversight on my part.

[squirmelia.livejournal.com]

That's the thing with place-names, I guess, the names are used so much that they could be a number of places. :)

[fred-smith.livejournal.com]

Indeed. Its certainly not my fault. Perish the thought.

[squirmelia.livejournal.com]

It's probably because I spelt "photosynthesise" as "photosynthesize" a while back, which was terribly bad of me.