Book Tower comprised of Smithsonian Publications at the Conference on the Future of the Smithsonian, February 11, 1927. For this installment of the In the Stacks we visit The Smithsonian Institution Archives for some bookish love. The SI archives are a repository that: captures, preserves, and makes available to the public the history of this extraordinary Institution. From its inception in 1846 to the present, the records of the history of the Institution—its people, its programs, its research, and its stories—have been gathered, organized, and disseminated so that everyone can learn about the Smithsonian. The history of the Smithsonian is a vital part...
The Book Planters of Do Myoung Kim
Ah (sprout) - Ah (ego) 2004 The Google Cultural Institute is a concentrated "effort to make important cultural material available and accessible to everyone and to digitally preserve it to educate and inspire future generations." A healthy component of the Institute is the Art Project, where Google has partnered with hundreds of museums, cultural institutions, and archives to bring their collections online. One of the organizations on board is the Korean Art Museum Association and lucky for us their holdings include a nice sampling of work by artist Do Myoung Kim. As Kim's work reminds us there's a lot of life in those books. Enjoy. The...
Of Interest: Burn the Diaries, How Literature Saved My Life, Storytelling Through Textiles and The Writer’s Garden
Burn the Diaries by Moyra Davey and Alison Strayer. Illustrated with photos by Davey. "The dross of the diary, the compulsion to scribble, the delusion that we can hold on to time. The inversion of this neurosis is the anxiety of being read, the fear of wounding and, just as strong, the dread of being unmasked." Comprised of texts from Moyra Davey and Alison Strayer Burn the Diaries is a meditation on the act of writing and much more. Using the works of Jean Genet Davey explores the story of her life in text and photographs. She then shares them...
Unbinding the Book: A New Era of Book Creation
Kate Morrell Unbinding the Book is a collaboration between the independent publishing platform Blurb and the visual arts studio Jotta. The challenge: push the boundaries of how books can be experienced, by evoking the storytelling properties of print and the way in which images evoke a narrative, whilst bringing to life the materiality, form and physicality that make books so alluring and different from their digital counterparts. [vimeo width="640" height="300"]http://vimeo.com/106487007[/vimeo] Nine artists and designers were commissioned to get to work creating a "book". Here is a sampling of some of the great stuff that has materialized so far: -Exploring the temporality and tactility...
Books with Sami
Lost in the library. 02.17.14 Sami is conceptual / fine art photographer hailing from Sheffield, England. She works under the moniker Manadh, which means ‘omen’ or ‘good luck’ in Gaelic and everyday since January, 1, 2011 she has taken at least one photograph. Lucky for us she incorporates books in some of her shots. Enjoy this sampling. Of an investigatory nature. 03.08.14 Gone camping. 06.12. 13 Nothing like a good book. 02.03.13 Overgrown. 04.22.14 Carrying the weight of the world. 10.15.13 Manadh's website Manadh's Photostream on Flickr