detail from Michael Jackson's Plastic Melting Face Lives, With Dorian's Spinning Bow-Tie : 1 (2011) by Sebastian Trend

A Library Is On Fire

Artists respond to literature

A Library Is On Fire is the first collective show by a group of North East based artists; Adam Hogarth, John Lavell, David Reynolds, Carol Sommer and Sebastian Trend. Inspired by literature and libraries as spaces and places with the power to change lives, the project aims to celebrate what can happen when people and inspirations from books come together. 

Library collections and archives offer access to layers of history and meaning that offer us insight into familiar and not so familiar worlds. They create opportunities to discover who we may be in those worlds at the same time as opening up potentially vast new horizons. This potential is something that A library Is On Fire seeks to celebrate in all its diversity.
 
One of the ambitions of A Library Is On Fire is to launch a rolling programme of events in the libraries of Literature & Philosophical Societies as well other libraries and locations across the country. The project has started to develop individual and institutional links in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, Durham, Darlington, Middlesbrough, Leeds and Liverpool.  

In addition there is an open invitation by A Library Is On Fire to contact us if you are interested in hosting an event or have any suggestions of how to do so.
           

'Libraries gave us power...' Manic Street Preachers, A Design for Life (1996)

detail from Untitled (2011) by David Reynolds

detail from The Tin Drum (2011) by Adam Hogarth

detail(s) from Double-tap (Diptych) (2011) by John Lavell

detail from I'm Every Woman (It's All In Me) (2011) by Carol Sommer