A Few Words
A mixed media project that was created as a direct response to book bannings occurring in public schools and libraries across the country.
Gallery Photos are Courtesy of J Adams
Method:
Create a space where there is a hand reaching out to words, quotes, images, and book materials. Quotes, books, authors, etc. will be a mixture of submissions from people beforehand and people at the viewings of the art piece.
Breakdown:
Butterflies - An ode to Reading Rainbow
Matchboxes - Fahrenheit 451 / Book burning and the destruction of research and materials from the victims of Hitler’s Nazi Germany. The knowledge we’ve lost in past book burnings, the idea that a school board member wanted to burn banned books
Mirrors - An ode to Toni Morrison. “If there's a book that you want to read, but it hasn't been written yet, then you must write it.” As well as the belief that we are the reflection of art and art is a reflection of us.
Newspaper - Op/eds and reviews on local and national media
Ripped pages - from discarded books and library books
Plastic and other book materials were from the same discarded books.
Concept:
Book banning is something I went through as a kid. I read the book anyway. I spent my Saturdays in public libraries reading books. I spent my weekdays in the school libraries reading books. I wanted to write and create stories like the ones I would get lost in. I wanted to read more and more and more.
I hated being told I couldn’t read something. Being told I couldn’t learn about something made me want to learn about it more.
Now that they’re back in the name of “protecting children” I only think of the moment when I was told I couldn’t read something. The way I felt shame about asking questions to anyone and how it shaped me. But then I think about the banned books that I read. I think of how they inspired me to become who I am, question myself and my actions, and opened my world to new options.
I love it here.
I’m not going back.
I want others to think about what if the books they loved as a kid or even as an adult were banned. What if you never got access to those books that made you who you are? I asked people what these books were, wrote them out, and invited people to pin them up or write up their own and pin them. I talked to them about the inspiration that books from my grandmother, who was a teacher, gave me and their influence on me.
The piece is dedicated to her.