The vast space and content of the Central Library overwhelmed me.
Not knowing where to begin, or what direction the work would take, made me apprehensive.
I instinctively began photographing anything that caught my eye, reacting to, rather than intellectualizing the space, it’s content and the direction the work would take.
I began by capturing the larger spaces and vistas between bookshelves. As I worked the space and became more absorbed in it, the scale of my focus narrowed down until the beautiful details revealed themselves to me.
All around was evidence of people who have worked in, used or made things for the intimate space of the library. Traces of their presence have been left; fingermarks in the dust on the top edge of books, worn leather spines, showing the repetitive action of generations of fingers who have pulled the book from the shelf.
Notices, and the cataloguing of books, (stored alphabetically of course,) reveal the handwriting of many individuals.
Polished wooden chairs and its modern incarnation - the office swivel chair, are examples of the passing of time indicated by the library furniture.
These details, and many more, unobserved by most, help build the multi-layered history of the building and the people who have used and worked in it.
This fractured collective is a personal response to a disparate whole that is the Central Library. Its people and its history, distilled in the detail.
