Book artist Amanda Love from Granville, Ohio, has an installation in the Springfield Museum of Art called "Tigris," named after the river in Baghdad, Iraq. Her installation focuses on historical attempts to silence cultures by getting rid of their books.
Her work inspired Springfield's Big Read— an ongoing grant-funded project organized by the Museum of Art and Clark County Public Library.
They’ve been giving away free copies of Ray Bradbury’s dystopian novel "Fahrenheit 451" and hosting events led by local artists (including Love) and writers.
"Tigris"
When the Mongol Armies seized Baghdad in 1258, they destroyed the libraries—the largest libraries in the Middle East—throwing so many books into the Tigris River that it reportedly ran black with ink.
Centuries later, when the United States invaded Iraq in 2003, looters set fire to the National Archives and the Koranic Library. Ashes and scraps of priceless ancient texts flew through the city streets.
After reading about those two events, Amanda Love created "Tigris" to try to capture those losses.
“When you walk into the room,” Love said, describing the installation, “you're opening a black curtain into a dimly lit room. In the center of the room is a rock-like, lava-like river. And then coming up from that river are these vessels holding fragments of ripped books.”
That river shape twists like a snake. It was taken from aerial maps of the Tigris River, and Love made 23 sculptures from deconstructed, ripped, and torn books that seem to float above it. There’s also audio in the room, designed by Love and Christopher Preissing to capture the feeling of books and ideas being destroyed.
“There's 20 channels of sound,” Love said. “The sound from the river as if you're turbulently underneath this current. The broken fragments of voices and people reading books.”
And they are fragments. In the installation's center, museum-goers hear only random syllables and sounds, no clear words or phrases.
“The hope is that when someone is standing in the space, the sound that you hear of the voices are bits as if a massive explosion just went off, and bits and pieces of the words are flying in the air,” Love said. “We also have the walls. The walls are sounds of books that have been set on fire. So there's this crackling fire sound.”
Big Read
Art Museum Educator Amy Korpieski has been working with the Clark County Public Library to coordinate the Big Read, sponsored by the NEA and Arts Midwest. The book list included "Fahrenheit 451," which Korpieski said was a perfect fit because it touches on themes like book censorship and how the media can influence people.
“The estimate said you'll get about 90 people who will want some books in English, and then we had 30 in Spanish and some in French. I could not find it translated into Haitian Creole." she said, "We ran out of books in the first three days.”
They did get a couple hundred more copies, and at last count, they were down to just five.
In addition to the free books, there are free passes to see "Tigris" at the museum.
Springfield’s Big Read is titled “Where We Live: In Curiosity,” and the theme feels right for the growing city, which was thrust into the national spotlight and debate about immigration when Republican politicians like Donald Trump and J.D. Vance amplified false and xenophobic internet rumors about the Haitian-American community there.
We ran out of books in the first three days.Amy Korpieski, Springfield Museum of Art
“Our community is changing,” Korpieski said. “The museum is a place to walk in someone else's shoes. Books are a place to walk in someone else's shoes. So we wanted to put that together with this Big Read project.”
Read-In
The museum recently hosted a “Read-In,” where community members took turns sharing passages from "Fahrenheit 451" inside the "Tigris" installation. Springfield teacher Jean Benton read the opening lines:
“It was a pleasure to burn. It was a special pleasure to see things eaten, to see things blackened and changed.”
Emi Glass, who moved from Wyoming to Springfield for work less than a week before the event, also read inside the exhibit.
“I stopped having to explain where Springfield was." Glass said, "Before I was having to tell people, ‘Oh, you know, halfway between Dayton and Columbus.’ Now everyone's like. ‘Springfield, Ohio? I know where it is!’”
As she read, Glass jotted down the lines she liked best. She said Bradbury’s work is shockingly relevant today.
“One quote that I thought was particularly important was ‘Those who don't build must burn,’” Glass said.
“Especially in the context of living in Springfield, of living in the U.S. in such a fraught time. I think it's very important to look at how we can contribute to our communities and become better people. Because at the end of the day, if you're not doing that, then, you know, doing nothing is detrimental.”
This Sunday, October 13, Amanda Love will make art from books at the museum. Guests will also have a chance to create artwork from books.
Other Big Read events throughout the fall include book discussions, writing circles, and an election-day community discussion with local leaders.
This story was produced at the Eichelberger Center for Community Voices at WYSO.