Staying put
Looped
Gracia Haby & Louise Jennison
Presented in partnership with State Library Victoria
Until August, 2018
La Trobe Reading Room
State Library Victoria
Honeyed. Blue. Early. Late. From the World of the Book or Changing Face of Victoria viewing platforms, or up higher still, from level 6, Louise and I love catching sight of our work, Looped, in the background of public instagram photos shared and geotagged SLV. The La Trobe Reading Room is frequently photographed, as this collection of 68 images from three consecutive days shows, and in the heart of them all, unbeknownst to the record keeper, we imagine, our artists’ books in the octagonal dome can be seen.
When we installed our work in the space on the 4th of August, 2017, we had no way of knowing that instead of folding away the work late in the month of November we would be invited to stay a little longer. A lot longer. Until August the following year. Until August, 2018! Our tales, to bend Christopher Wren’s words, ‘aim[ing] at Eternity’.
We are thrilled that our artists’ books are staying put. In the dais, for a year! And we invite you to revisit the work, now that time has been gloriously extended. We look forward to seeing our paper folds in the background of more memory shots, almost as much as the intentional keepsakes shared to #GraciaLouiseLooped.
Thank-you. All.
We’re elated. And our artists' books, why, they feel right at home.
Architecture has its political Use; publick Buildings being the Ornament of a Country; it establishes a Nation, draws People and Commerce; makes the People love their native Country, which Passion is the Original of all great Actions in a Common-wealth…. Architecture aims at Eternity.
— Christopher Wren, ‘Of Architecture’, Parentalia; or Memoirs of the Family of the Wrens, comp. by his son Christopher, Appendix, p. 351 (1750, reprinted 1965).
Image credit: Elevated view of the Melbourne Public Library [about 1913]
