Speculative Libraries

In these augmented reality artworks (AR) I’ve placed drawings of landscapes in structures reminiscent of architecture used by institutions like libraries and universities. With this artwork I’m imagining new ways of restoring and protecting knowledge that was destroyed by colonialism.

For the printed works I placed drawings of landscapes from Nass Valley, British Columbia, or plants endemic to the Hawaiian Islands inside of the layouts of early Indigenous language printed books. Many of the first books in the New World and in the Hawaiian Islands were Christian texts printed in Indigenous languages by religious orders intent on encapsulating and destroying Indigenous knowledge.

The range of knowledge destroyed includes oral languages, place knowledge, spirituality, cultural practices, social interactions, and healing. Colonizers took Indigenous knowledge and placed it in printed books without attribution, collected the bodies of Indigenous ancestors, and wrote their own histories of their colonial actions. These looted artifacts have been preciously defended by libraries and universities for decades. I want to call attention to this lopsided preservation and to imagine what a repository of Indigenous knowledge would encompass - using the aesthetic language of speculative architecture and Western value.