WE ARE WHAT WE READ: AN ARTWORK FOR BRITISH ART SHOW 9 IN WOLVERHAMPTON
Saturday 5th February, 11am-2pm
Whitmore Reans Library, WV6 0QW
Free entry
Abigail Reynolds and Abigail Williams in discussion at the Whitmore Reans Branch Library in Wolverhampton.
On Saturday 5th February there will be a short taste of the BAS9 art work ‘Elliptical Reading’ in Whitmore Reans library followed by a Q&A with artist Abigail Reynolds and Professor Abby Williams
Elliptical Readings is all about acts of reading together: what it means for a person to share their chosen book with other people in the communal space of a library. Each reader has chosen a very different book for the library, representing their identity, their interests or their enthusiasms. The books themselves have been beautifully re-bound with personalised images of each reader’s hands. The readers come together weekly to read from their books, but does this act of reading together always unite us? What happens if we really dislike a book, or dislike the values we feel it demonstrates? Are the culture wars of the 21st century changing the ways we relate to books and to one another? Do we read differently in a communal space?
In this in person discussion Abigail Reynolds and Prof Abby Williams will reflect on issues of identity, communality, and tolerance and think about what it means to be a reader now in context of ‘Elliptical Reading’.
Prof Abby Williams is a Professor of Eighteenth-Century Literature at St Peter's College, Oxford and Director of Knowledge Exchange, Innovation and Impact for the Humanities Division, University of Oxford
Abigail Reynolds is a BAS9 artist who lives and works in Cornwall. Her book, ‘Lost Libraries’ is published by Hatje Cantz.
This project is supported by TORCH as part of the Humanities Cultural Programme.
For more details on this project please visit: https://torch.web.ox.ac.uk/elliptical-reading
