Hannah Yourd ’09 reads beneath a paper-based sculpture by Meredith Groves ’08. The site-specific works will remain in Burling until the end of the semester.REBECCA TAYLOR
Burling Library plays an integral role in the Grinnell experience. From first seeing students huddled in concentration around tables or napping in the tops of treehouses during a tour to the marathon studying of finals week, many Grinnellians have a close attachment to a certain area in the library. Lee Running’s Sculptural Paper class explored those connections with their site-specific installations (designed with the intention of being displayed in a certain space) in the library, up now through th end of the semester.
The artists ventured into the wide-ranging spirit of Burling, examining visceral connections with the dark stacks and light-filled atrium, to interact with the spaces in the library and give them deeply personal identities. “I think it’s about embodying different characteristics of the library, but in some ways opening those things up,” said Running.
The students worked with paper from start to finish. Beginning with a class trip to Iowa City where they harvested pulp from mulberry trees, they experimented with making paper during the first half of the semester. “They had this sort of arsenal of tools, and so then we turned that whole tool set on the library,” said Running.
Students submitted proposals to the library after each of them chose a site. The whole process was aimed towards collaboration and creating art that would be both personal for the students but also practical for the library. “We had a little bit of negotiation on some of the proposals, but most of them didn’t require any kind of change,” said Richard Fyffe, librarian of the College.
The installation in Burling is part of an overall goal of the library staff to use the space more effectively and creatively. This summer’s renovation jump-started the trend, which has continued with events like poetry and literature readings. “Having these events in the library gives them a different kind of meaning,” said Fyffe. “So we’re interpreting the space in some ways, but bringing the art in was an especially exciting one.”
The viewer can easily see these kinds of collaborative processes at work. None of the installations seem forced or out of place, and many seem to grow naturally out of the wall or stairs or shelf where they are placed.
Paula Matallana ’10 placed paper that hangs and creeps around the shelves in the Latino Collection on the first floor where it was spiritually born. Its title, “Macondo Lives Only In The Mind,” from a Gabriel Garcia Marquez short story, emphasizes just how related the work is to its site.
Another installation, Veronica Erb ’08’s “Hemispheres,” relates directly to the class’s process of improvisation and creation. Erb’s idea sprang from some work she had been doing casting bowls from the paper, when she realized, without previously planning it, that they would perfectly fit her site inside a treehouse on the first floor. “I was looking at the library as a space, but also as architecture,” she said. “I want those hemispheres to fit within the space, and kind of live there.”
Alex Schechter ’10 used some of the research he had done in his Religious Studies classes to come up with the idea for his installation, “Burqa,” which fits right next to a permanently displayed art piece on the wall (located at the front windows on the first floor) and sets up an interesting contrast between the site-specific work of the class and the classically sanctioned idea of art.
“It’s been really fun and challenging to introduce your own work into a public space,” said Schechter. His forms, despite their easily identifiable shape, may be one of the most mysterious projects because of their simultaneously delicate emptiness and heavy full draped shape.
With such diversity in form and style, the installations in Burling don’t have any sort of overriding theme to them. The greatest lesson drawn from them may just be how exciting it would be for more site-specific installations to happen on campus in the future.
“I think that there is something to be discovered from working in less-known places, in ways to bring student’s attention to different kinds of art activity,” said Running.
