An installation celebrating a golden age of commons learning and early development of the public library system in Dunedin, New Zealand. Representing 100 years of obsolescence of a once iconic institution and its convergence of dated systems of information technology – grey areas operate between explicit known boundaries.
This small library sits vacant and dilapidated, in a perfectly sealed hermetic environment long since closed to the public, situated off the Octagon of main street Dunedin. It is a time capsule simultaneously rich in history but little known and at odds with the contemporary digital world operating outside of it.
One component of the installation maps the entire contents of a populist pulp fiction Mills & Boone novella, Winter of Dreams by Susan Napier, creating a visual joke about the artist living in Dunedin and torrent of paper outpouring through a fax machine.
Collaborating with a local museum historian (Otago Early Settlers Museum) and driven by a sense of discovery, this symbol of book learning and a members-only organisation is re-positioned for the observer through an installation of print and photo-based media, in the ‘white cube’ gallery space of Dunedin Public Art Gallery, 2000.
