We live in an age of social media. Online platforms such as Twitter, Facebook, and Tumblr have become our ephemeral bookmarks, giving each of us a voice on the internet. People can use these platforms to plan events, protest a cause, and for dating. However, VCU sociology, film, and photography major Mark Strandquist has found a novel way to connect people in a more permanent way--without the internet.
Awarded and funded by a 2013 VCU Arts Undergraduate Research Grant, The People’s Library is an ongoing collaborative community art project set up by Strandquist. The project involves hundreds of books that were going to be thrown away; instead, they are being repulped and turned into a thousand blank books. Once these books are blank, the community can create a new and more personal history. These blank books will be available to be checked out from the main branch of the Richmond Public Library. Members of the public will be invited to check out books, fill the pages with anything they want, and return the book. At this point, the completed books will become part of the RPL's permanent collection.
By inviting participation from all segments of society, Strandquist hopes to publicly articulate local history, encapsulate an era of time and turn it into a historical record accessible by future generations. By challenging the form and function of public space, Strandquist hopes to create hundreds of monuments through a singular reading of Richmond’s history in the publicly-created books.
“We are hoping that [the project] constitutes a very singular reading of history in Richmond," Strandquist said. "It can be read in a way that’s like, it’s a sustainable, democratic public art project. It can also be read in the context of a city, where... you have the monuments to a lot of Confederate leaders, and then downtown... where the largest amount of slaves were imported into America, you have a plaque. So we are interested in how this project can sort of create a thousand monuments to all of Richmond, rather than a select few.”
Putting together this project and uniting such a large demographic was no simple task. It began with a project Strandquist started in fall of 2012 called Write Home Soon. The People’s Library Project started this year as an extension of his previous project. But for Strandquist, this project really began during his high school years, when he worked with a group of "predominantly black, no to low income senior citizens" through Positive Force, a Washington DC-based nonprofit activist group. “[They] grew up through segregation, race riots, all sorts of cultural, economical, and political struggles... a lot of them have already passed away,” said Strandquist. “What happens when those histories that we don't normally come in contact with aren't recorded, aren't made public? That [question] sort of informed all my work."
The books that will make up the People’s Library are created in collaboration with the community printmaking workshop Studio Two Three, which holds printing sessions that give members of the community a chance to share their story. Studio Two Three prints a prompt on each book cover to provide inspiration for authors, and allows individuals to reflect on it however they want. Strandquist thinks of this freedom of expression as an open conversation from author to author. “It sort of creates this collective conversation when viewed as a whole,” he said.
The whole project can also be read as a free skill share. “[We're] teaching people how to make paper, how to bind books,” said Strandquist. These creative workshops are being set up all over the city and are designed to include communities that can’t access the library--working with incarcerated folks in Richmond City Jail, and Senior Citizens that can’t physically get there.
Workshops are currently being held at the Main Branch of the Richmond Public Library every Tuesday and Thursday from 2-6. A workshop is set up for this Friday and Saturday at the Visual Arts Center, located at 1812 W. Main St, where participants will be able to do the whole project. The bookmaking workshop takes place today from 2-9 and tomorrow from 10-5--for more information, click here. Every workshop is free and open to the public.
The People's Library collection at the Richmond Public Library will open on Saturday, May 4, with a reception from 5-9 PM at the Main Branch of the Richmond Public Library, located at 101 E. Franklin St. For more information on the People's Library Project, go to nomovement.com/People-s-LIbrary.