After the yearly bookfair held in Romainmôtier, a small quiet Swiss town near the border with France, artist Jan Reymond takes the remaining books and creates an installation. Reymond says he wanted to give the unsold books “a last life” before they got thrown away.
The bookfair is held at the town church, a classic Romanesque structure that dates back to the 5th century. It is in one of these perfect Romanesque arches that house Reymond’s installation. For Reymond the arch represents “spiritual power.”
This year the arch became home to a book framed doorway with books suspended from the top of the arch in a rain-like fashion. Reymond also placed books in the surrounding windows and trees The books are hung closed under the arch and are open in the windows and trees. Reymond says that this years installation symbolizes more the identity of books than the power of books, “they are open like birds who want to escape or to be free. Furthermore,the installation symbolizes the forest, the protection from it and the protection from books can be associated, both of them surround you and make you feel comfortable and safe.”
In his 2005 installation Reymond mirrored the arch by building his own Romanesque book arch supported by a pillar of books. You get a great sense of the both the power and the grace of the book and how the book can be used for rigid, utilitarian purposes but also how subversive and messy books can be to the powers that be.
In 2006 Reymond packed the arch with books creating a bunker type appearance yet there remained a small window allowing one to see through to the other side. A powerful representation of how books can be for some a dogmatic shield from the outside world and for others a window to the possibilities that exist outside.
I can’t wait to see what Reymond has in store for us next year.