The importance of libraries

Shubigi Rao is an artist, filmmaker and writer, and a few days before the opening we meet for a conversation in the room at the library where one of her films, ‘Written in the Margins’, is shown. The film shows clips from interviews she has conducted around the world and we get to hear stories about people's experiences of censorship and destruction of books, but also about the importance of organising and resisting.

– My art is a little bit about the love of books but even more so about why we destroy them. Who has the right to decide what we should read or not?

– As a child, I was surrounded by books. I discovered that I could read about both the living and the dead and I felt included, through time and space. I started thinking about the world: why is the world the way it is? I thought about the violence that exists in both schools and homes and about why we silence people, about what form would be the best to implement change and came to the conclusion that given the fear it still evokes in totalitarian minds, it is the book.

Uncomfortable books

Shubigi Rao

ImageLinus Talltjärn

Ten years ago, Shubigi Rao started the ‘Pulp I-IV’ book project, which so far has four instalments and a fifth instalment on the way to complete the series. The series starts globally, but then coalesces in Sarajevo, where the National Library of Bosnia and Herzegovina was bombed in 1992, destroying almost 2 million books. Shubigi Rao interviews librarians, authors and teachers. She meets and is impressed by activists who have saved works and discovers that banned literature is being republished. Many stories emerge, which then find their way into her work.

Who has the right to decide what we should read or not?

In another part of the exhibition in the library, a display case is filled with books wrapped and almost completely covered in fabric. The fabrics were created by women and Indigenous weaversartisans  in the Philippines and symbolise the active role of women in preserving literary heritage, which Shubigi Rao has witnessed many times.

Shubigi Rao wanted to work with the library at the Arts Campus and asked librarian Marie Malmi to select some uncomfortable books that can stir up emotions, all available to borrow from Umeå University Library. Marie and her colleagues picked a number of books that could shake things up in different ways, including Svensk raskunskap (1927) by Herman Lundborg.

Marie Malmi

ImageLinus Talltjärn

– All libraries have literature that upsets someone on their shelves, it's inevitable. But it's part of the libraries‘ job not to just brush it off or avoid what might be difficult,’ says Marie Malmi and continues:

– We don't judge what our users borrow. Our job is not to censor but to make reading and dialogue accessible and possible. But before the books hit the shelves, we do a lot of invisible work cataloguing, classifying and validating them. We make every effort to reach out and make them easy to find for anyone looking.

– The librarian's source-critical eye, the evaluation of the truthfulness of different types of information, but also the help in putting it into a context that can look different depending on who is asking, helps the borrower,’ says Marie Malmi. She hopes that the artworks in the library will raise questions among visitors and appreciates the co-operation with Shubigi Rao.

Relevant in Sweden?

Many of Shubigi Rao's travels have been to places in conflict and I ask her how issues of censorship and cultural destruction are relevant to us in Sweden.

– Firstly, regimes can change! We need to work to preserve what is good every day so that it is not eroded. We need to learn to recognise the early signs, while we should also help other countries where censorship and destruction are taking place. Also,it is important to ensure libraries do not exclude voices. For example, historically women were rarely published, and those few who were, are not recognised in their lifetime, so libraries can inadvertently be places of exclusion. Working class voices, oral stories of Indigenous Sami - these are just two other examples. Sweden, like every country, has certain groups represented in libraries more than others, so this conversation is always necessary, in every nation, region, or community.

A wrapped book from the exhibition. Librarians Marie Malmi, Petra Svanborg and Charlotta Turborn contributed to the artwork ‘Uneasy Truces, Strange Bedfellows’, by selecting the books to be covered by fabrics created by women.

ImageLinus Talltjärn

We need to learn to recognise the early signs

Shubigi Rao reiterates the importance of libraries, where you are in control of your search and not guided by algorithms like when you search on the internet. Libraries are not just about the books:

– Libraries are still free to visit, and that is vital as not much in our monetized society is. Beyond books, libraries have computers and internet, and in places like the US they help register people to vote, they assist homeless or elderly people navigate government paperwork and sites. They provide shelter, warmth and refuge. Children who visit libraries, and who may have special needs, or are at risk, find safety and are seen by librarians. And of course, you can find yourself amongst the community that books can create.