A Catalogue of a Young Country Ladies Library Exhibition

A Catalogue of a Young Country Ladies Library is an exhibition by Louis Porter at Terranova bookstore in collaboration with Chiquita Room. Louis Porter compiles here a collection of photographic postcards depicting women engaged in the act of reading, juxtaposed with a list written by Anne Baker in 1712 of recommended items to be included in a “Ladies” library.

As the academic Melanie Bigold notes in her short text, “The formation of a library is a creative and cultural act, and collections of books – whether read or not – are conduits for self-definition.” The concept of “conduits for self-definition” and the plasticity of how this identity is formed, is what links the two elements in the project.

Most of the postcards, which were collected by Louis Porter between 2019-2023, are from the early 20th century, when the photographic postcard was a new invention. They are images in motion that simultaneously present a personal experience within a technically mediated cultural framework. A photograph is always a performance, the question is for whom or what? Anne Baker’s list of items in a “Young Country Ladies Library” is not entirely what it seems on first glance either. Written in response to an unrealised promise by The Spectator magazine to publish a list of recommended readings for women, Baker created her own semi-fictional list and in doing so embedded subtle remarks on the expectations placed upon the female reader.

Opening: Saturday, September 2 at 7 pm.

In collaboration with