Alden Library features a three-floor installation exhibit
An exhibit titled “Beasts of the Interior by Sarah Minor: Creative Writing off the Page” opens on the third, fourth and fifth floors of Alden Library February 18 and will close at the end of the spring semester. The pieces included in the exhibit were made and curated by Sarah Minor, a doctoral candidate in English at OHIO, and assistant professor of English and creative writing at the Cleveland Institute of Art.
According to Minor, the exhibit will consist of three immersive “visual essays” that will speak to issues of identity, gender, representation, perception and communication.
“This exhibit will be an installation of visual essays—a genre that invites the audience to read interactively through sculptural texts that incorporate tactile media. For this project, I’ll be making essays about the intersection of text and tactile materials,” Minor said.
Three main interactive pieces of the exhibit: “Log Cabin Quilt,”
“Foul Chutes,” and “Slim Confessions” will be accompanied by a visual essay that includes instructions on how the viewer can interact with the installation. Selections from the Libraries’ Rare Book and Fine Arts Collections, will also be included in the exhibit.
“By situating this work alongside selections from the Libraries’ collection, the exhibition will help to place visual essays in a lineage of book-objects, especially those in the Libraries’ holdings. The exhibition is also an occasion to put many of these collected works in conversation across a shared genre (sculptural books and artists books) and subject matter (textiles, tactile materials, the history of women’s crafts),” Minor stated in a descriptive text about the installation exhibit.
Minor added that featuring the essays in multiple locations will allow viewers to explore different parts of Alden Library that they may not be familiar with, and will give individuals many opportunities to encounter the work.
In addition to the exhibit, Minor will be hosting a Talk and Walk tour on March 6 at 3:00 p.m. starting on the 4th floor of the Library. During this event Minor will take her audience on a tour through her installations while explaining the significance of the pieces. She will also conduct a brief demonstration at each site.
“We think that having a student present their highly interdisciplinary dissertation research, elements of which are installed throughout the Library, and which are in conversation with pieces from the [OHIO] Libraries’ collections… provides a unique opportunity for us to showcase the Libraries and the diverse resources and opportunities it offers, from a student’s perspective and in a student’s voice,” said Miriam Intrator, special collections librarian.
The Libraries invites everyone to view the exhibit and interact with Minor’s installations.
According to Intrator, the exhibit will provide individuals with the opportunity to view materials from the Libraries’ collections that also display writing, narratives and stories on non-traditional materials and in non-traditional formats and structures.
“This exhibit, by combining interactive installations with more traditional displays, offers visitors a multi-sensory experience that we hope will challenge them to think about creative writing, books and expression in new and different ways. All are welcome and encouraged to come by,” Intrator said.
For more information please contact Intrator, or Michele Jennings, art librarian and co-organizer of the exhibit.