The Library

The Library is a site specific installation that aimed to create a quiet yet slightly anxious space that both honoured books discarded from the University of Tasmania’s Christ College Library as well as evoking the testing environment of a 19th century school for young men. It used minimal installation strategies to convey both aims. A wooden table laden with books; books with titles that challenged religious belief; candles; vinyl wall text that referenced the five original classification headings used in the Christ College library first catalogue, and the voice of John F C Richards reading Horace’s Book 1, Ode 11, which famously includes the line carpe diem – seize the day. The work thus also made reference to the film Dead Poets Society (1989) which revealed the difficulties of growing up in a private boys’ school. The overall result was an environment that suggested the sacred, but also evoked the harshness of the education system.