Orphan Papers
12.11.2017 – 29.01.2018
Sitterwerk Art Library, St. Gall ↗︎
The Sitterwerk Art Library is dynamic in more ways than one. In addition to the library's unique cataloguing robot, the books themselves contain a multitude of notes, newspaper cutouts, and ephemera which open up new insights, histories, and lines of enquiry. These ephemera were left behind by the avid book collector, Daniel Rohner, as well as other individuals, who donated books to Sitterwerk.
The exhibition Orphan Papers highlighted how these things left behind are as much part of the Sitterwerk library as the books themselves. The ephemera were catalogued and curated, and displayed within the library in such a way that invited interaction. Library visitors could continue to access and read the books as usual, but the exhibition allowed them to do so on top of, and surrounded by, the personal notes and cutouts which were left behind. The exhibition was therefore an optimistic invitation for visitors to add their personal voices to continuing research, and to enter other people's universes in order to explore their own. The presence of the Sitterwerk's material archive lent poignancy to these voices which have now passed away. In addition, it represented a multitude of potential personal futures.
Random Access Memories vol.1, Newspapers cutouts and Documenta 6 were published during the exhibition by Boabooks. ↗︎
With the support from the Fonds cantonal d'art contemporain ↗︎ and many more at the Sitterwerk. ↗︎