Carpe Librum: Seize the book
Books are so much more than the written words or narrative they contain and our relationships with them are multifarious. Whilst books are carriers of information and imagery they are also something higher than their original function. Books have an elegance as an object and feel satisfying within our hands, but in Carpe Librum we see books as artistic enterprise.
All the books exhibited have been conceived and made by artists. To make a book the students have had to learn; hand binding and stitching, and utilise folding and pressing and precision techniques to make artist’s books that have been created as artworks in their own right. They are diverse in their design and materials used as well as subject matter. The artist’s books on display are a selection of works that have been produced by students from Ara Art & Design programme: second year combined print and bookbinding elective and works from a first year Visual Communication class.
The altered books have been created by staff from Ara Art & Design. The artists were asked to select a decommissioned book from Ara, Institute of Canterbury’s Library. The altered books provide an opportunity for the artists to think creatively and work with the book as an object as well as the content that lies within.
Artists: Bruce Aitken, Wendy Clarke, Julie Humby, Carol King, Kim Lowe, John Maillard, Deborah Marshall, Michael Reed, Stefan Roberts, Jane Schollum, Henry Sunderland and Kiri Te Wake, contribute to Carpe Librum.
As an art curator, artist and librarian Carpe Librum is a show after my own heart, and it is a pleasure to be part of the huge variety of events that make up WORD Christchurch 2016 Writers & Readers Festival, sharing our love for words, images and the form of the book.
Visit the exhibition at Art Box on our City Campus
Photos courtesy of Stefan Roberts, work above by Wendy Clarke “…the word became flesh” (2016) Mixed media
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