Opening Reception: Bookmarks

Opening Reception: Wednesday, March 27, 5:30 – 7:30 pm, Shapiro Undergraduate Library (First Floor Lobby)

A multi-venue exhibition of site-specific installations, performances, interventions, and events by University of Michigan faculty, staff, and students, Bookmarks: Speculating the Futures of the Book and Library is curated by Guna Nadarajan, dean of the Penny W. Stamps School of Art & Design at the University of Michigan, in partnership with the University of Michigan Library. The exhibition will be located in several locations within Shapiro Undergraduate Library, Hatcher Graduate Library, and the Art, Architecture & Engineering Library.

The continued proliferation of digital formats and systems for the embodiment, distribution, and delivery of knowledge increasingly displace the book as form. As a result, the spacial limitations of libraries are challenged. The value of the book and the function of the library demand cultural attention. In this moment, we ask ourselves: what is the future of the library? What is the future of the book? This exhibition seeks to instigate and showcase creative responses to the challenges to the book and the library in the forms we have inherited as well as to project ways of reimagining futures for/​of books and libraries.

Bookmarks: Speculating the Futures of the Book and Library is supported by the Penny W. Stamps School of Art & Design, the University of Michigan Library, the University of Michigan Office for Research (UMOR), and the University of Michigan Office of the Provost.