STRETCHING BOOKS INTO ART
“Brain Sell”, made from books donated by the Save the Children Fund, the State Library and the City of Mandurah’s two libraries, has been installed at the Falcon eLibrary and Community Centre. Following the festival, the books will be sold off at the eLibrary on May 12 with proceeds going to Save the Children Fund (Mandurah).
The sculpture takes the form of an enormous brain cell (neuron) including dendrites (cellular extensions) expanding out to create more brain pathways within the eLibrary and will be on display until May 9. Sculptor Graham Hay is giving a public talk on his work at the library at 3.30pm on May 2.
Mr Hay and local volunteers worked from the simple idea: “How many books would you read from cover to cover in a lifetime? How big would the stack be? How would you organise them to show what they mean to you? What shape would you make?
Over the past decade, Mr Hay has carved his way through 20 tonnes of paper while travelling the world fulfilling sculptural commissions and presenting workshops on paper sculptures and working with paper clay.
His largest sculpture was a 3-tone spiral in the foyer of the High Court of Australia in Canberra. For another in Fremantle, five hundred phonebooks were shaped into a tunnel to suggest the thousand who have visited the Fremantle Arts Centre gallery.
As part of the Stretch Festival, there will a free bus service tomorrow (May 3) from the Mandurah Visitor Centre to Falcon eLibrary and Community Centre on the hour every hour from 11.00am to 3.00pm so people can view ‘Brain Sell’.
Mandurah Mayor Paddi Creevey said ‘Brain Sell’ was brilliant concept as a work of art in progress for the City’s annual Stretch Festival and as a solution for the local branch of the Save the Children Fund.
“The charity had difficulty finding suitable premises for its book sale and was close to abandoning the project,” Mayor Creevey said.
“So not only has the Save the Children Fund found an ideal venue for the book sale, but the stock is going to play a somewhat different, but still valuable, creative role before it’s sold.”
RELEASE ENDS
2 May 2008