https://www.ticketsource.co.uk/whats-on/hull/brynmor-jones-library/last-words/e-pbdpgk
see below for all the many threads, inspirations, connections that weave together in this work
In my work in libraries, as an artist and library worker, I have seen that library books ‘die’ – are taken off shelves – to make space for new books, so that the shelves can ‘breathe’. There are many criteria used to determine this. For example, they could be duplicates; in bad condition; outdated in terms of their content according to different parameters. In this project, I am most interested in this last reason for taking a book off the shelf – that a book’s content is outdated – even though library workers are very cautious about removing books in this way from what I’ve seen. And these books anyway will likely be sold on by the library and exist in many other libraries still, definitely in the British Library if published in the UK and Ireland. But this does mark a moment of transition that feels important to me: from within the circulation of that particular library – with the status and belonging of being part of that library’s collection, a shared resource for a public to read for free – to being released from that library.
So, if we see these books as symbols/metaphors of systems/knowledges/ways of being that we no longer need, how can we mark this transition for these books? What sorts of events or rituals or moments could give these books a good death – composting their knowledges/practices/ways of being and putting them to rest, so that they don’t reemerge? And what else might emerge from this space? How can we expand/stretch/play with the potential of words, the meanings we can receive from those books? How can words disintegrate and come together again in an embodied way as something different?
The Last Words (2025-2026) is a series of collective performances/grief rituals/joy rituals/spoken word works/breath exercises/something else each time, working through these questions.
The work is the bringing together of many current alive threads and spaces that inspire and nourish my practices: Aurora Levins Morales on storytelling, grief, medicine in polycrisis | The Manifesto Project at Morden Library and the collaboration with Ambrine Boukhalfa where this project originated | talking to Alison Clarke, library officer, about breathing shelves and dead books | people at end-of-life who have accompanied me – breathed with me – as I’ve accompanied them, breathed with them | the death and joy work in the poetry of Andrea Gibson | connecting with staff at Mitcham Library, Brynmor Jones Library (Hull University), Warwick University Library | holding space for regular collective cooking in Mitcham Orchard | Tehching Hsieh talking to me about body rhythm | breathing together in spaces of protest, kinship, solidarity | Lama Rod Owens on rage, love, broken-heartedness | regular work with children and young people who don’t use words in many settings | queer song circles inspired by Aaron Johnson and Ary Solomon, held by eve, singing in the dark, vocalising breath | Vanessa Machado de Oliveira’s book Hospicing Modernity |everyday library work as an interface for shared embodied connection | the death work of Shivani Narang, Narinder Bazen, Murphy Robinson, Jamie Waggoner | the gap between breaths, the space where one day I will likely stop breathing | the performance series 2024-2025 in the gap, are we there | Street Soundsystem’s sonic interventions | The Sonic Art Research Unit and Patrick Farmer’s On Vibration | Cloud Work and Lost in the Maze: films I made with young people in 2023 and 2024 focused on interconnectedness and entanglement and togetherness
