TEXTS TO READ:
Doreen Massey: A Global Sense of Place
https://www.unc.edu/courses/2006spring/geog/021/001/massey.pdf
Georges Perec: Species of Spaces and Other Pieces
https://monoskop.org/images/b/b0/Perec_Georges_Species_of_Spaces_and_Other_Pieces.pdf
Neil Gaiman: Why our future depends on libraries, reading and daydreaming?
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2013/oct/15/neil-gaiman-future-libraries-reading-daydreaming
Caroline Bergvall: What Do We Mean by Performance Writing?
http://www.carolinebergvall.com/content/text/BERGVALL-KEYNOTE.pdf
John Hall: Essays on Performance Writing, Poetics and Poetry Vol. 1
LISTEN:
Library essays #1 "Elephants are always drawn smaller than life" (in Finnish).
https://soundcloud.com/user-414549664/kirjastoessee-versio-3
Written and performed by Pilvi Porkola.
Sounddesign by Pauli Riikonen.
Library essays #1 "Elephants are always drawn smaller than life"(in English)
https://soundcloud.com/pilvi-porkola/library-essay-eng
English version is translated and performed by Hannah Maria Ouramo.
Written and edited by Pilvi Porkola.
Technical consulting by Jusa Porkola.
ASSIGNMENTS:
Writing exercises:
1. Write about your relationship to a library.
2. Continue the text. You can write your own text or make a compilation of existing texts by using fiction and non-fiction or autobiographical material.
"Imagine a room.
Imagine a space full of shelves.
Imagine a library.
Look around you.
All of the shelves are empty. A roll of tape, a pair of scissors, and a couple of cardboard boxes lay forgotten on the counter. Under it, there are more boxes and a bag of garbage. Someone has clearly swept the floor; otherwise the place is deserted and dark."
3. Write about the library of the future.
THE SPACE EXERCISES:
1. Explore the space where you are now. Look at it, touch materials, smell it. Listen. Focus on its materiality. Write about your observations or discuss with someone.
2. Explore the space where you are now. Focus on little details, unseen, not-so-obvious, invisble. Write about it or share with others.
THE NOMAD LIBRARY is a mobile version of Pilvi Porkola's performance series Library Essays. The site consists materials of the performance and its process concerning "space", "performative writing", "library" and "imagining". There are texts to read and assignments to do. Please feel free to suggest more material to the site about above-mentioned topics.
