Libraries at risk
“Without freedom of thought, there can be no such thing as wisdom; and no such thing as public liberty, without freedom of speech.”
- Silence Dogood, 1722*
In the United States, anti-intellectualism now has a stranglehold on our future. Reading and writing anything critical of the current regime has specific consequences; funding for already threadbare agencies devoted to the arts has been terminated mid-grant, and libraries and librarians are under attack simply for keeping an accurate record of our culture.
In this work, my aim is to re-center the library in our lives. With over 1,500 public libraries in California alone, there were plenty of choices. I chose to look at the libraries from above, thereby placing them on the map. Some of the libraries I have simply driven past, others have occupied me for hours.
Each panel is derived from a satellite view of the library’s location; I did not want to create accurate replicas, I wanted to prioritize impact above accuracy. More than just a sort of warehouse, a library is the cultural hub of a community, offering kinship and enlightenment. A place to both ask and answer questions.
How does your local library map to your life today?
*Benjamin Franklin writing as Silence Dogood, The New-England Courant, 1722
