The Lost Library at The Wrexham Open

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Word and seed collecting workshop at Ty Pawb

Performance at UnDegUn

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The Lost Library was selected as one of five socially engaged works in the Wrexham Open.  This was the first ever year The Wrexham Open had a dedicated category.

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I was dleighted to be selected and then set out to gather words from people in the area in various ways including a call out on socially media which yielded no words and a seed (honesty) and word collecting workshop in the Ty Pawb gallery space. This worked so much better.

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Perhaps this is a life lesson to get off the digital and into live interactions.  I probably sound like a luddite now!

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So, having gathered a few precious words. On my next visit to Wrexham I spent 2 hours at the gallery space UnDegUn awaiting library visitors.  And there were a few.  So each visitor posed me a question which I move/danced around the gallery space to absorb.  Then I sifted a word from those collected on my previous time in Wrexham and issued their very own Lost Library card.

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Since it’s inception this project has evolved into a joining ritual and the sifting of a word to represent the reduced offer of libraries with so many closing and shedding staff.

 

Being particularly sensitive to location and to language, this is my way of understanding the land I inhabit. The here and now.  I understand the land I’m in through the words people around me consider to be important and the questions they ask.   

  

I read a question, consider it and carry it into movement.  I am attuning myself to where I find myself, paying particular attention to the land, people and sounds of the places I inhabit, I am deeply listening. 

  

This is a word choosing, question-pondering nomadic library focussed on the mind-body connection of language and movement.   

  

Built upon the idea that the best way to fully consider a question is by holding it, not only in mind, but to move bodily while considering it to see unexpected aspects.  The questions are currently picked at from those submitted by anyone interested in the project in or linked with the area of performance.

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