A Found Bookmark<\/i>\u00a0is a facsimile edition of a bookmark and the pages it was discovered between at The London Library.<\/p>\n
“Since 2014 I have used the London Library \u2013 one of the world\u2019s largest subscription libraries \u2013 as a site for artistic research, contemplation and production. Almost one million books are housed on open access shelves organised alphabetically by subject, allowing for a form of literary D\u00e9rive.<\/p>\n
During my wanderings I occasionally encounter a bookmark, most are simple scraps of paper with little or nothing on them. Occasionally, one will reveal something about a previous reader: a receipt for a meal a ticket stub, a list of items to be purchased or tasks to perform. Rarer still are those which form little bridges between myself, the book and this unknown reader and for a moment, on discovering the bookmark, I feel in a way I know this person.<\/p>\n
This edition produced for and with Chiquita Room is an attempt to share that moment of connection. This particular bookmark was found in a copy of\u00a0The New Theories of Matter and the Atom<\/i>\u00a0by Alfred Berthoud under Chemistry, inside the densely packed shelves of the Science and Miscellaneous section. On a sheet of paper carefully removed from a lined notebook, a reader has neatly written \u2013 beginning with Avogadro\u2019s number \u2013 a series of aide memoire on the fundamentals of matter. This marker represents then a point of departure, but its presence between the pages of the book suggest the reader\u2019s journey \u2013 though begun in earnest \u2013 may have been short lived and in that it also indicates a journey\u2019s end. The tenacious desire to turn to books, to leave them unfinished, unread or misunderstood, is an act that has no digital correlate. No amount of unread PDFs or hastily bookmarked websites for self-enlightenment can simulate the intimacy of a fleeting encounter with a book. These digital surrogates are hollow performances, unrequited loves or furtive glances.<\/p>\n
A bookmark not only indicates a place in a book, it represents a pause, the moment when the connection between a book and its reader was broken. The conditions of this suspension are unknown, but its intimacy lingers.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":24521,"template":"","meta":{"_price":"","_stock":"","_tribe_ticket_header":"","_tribe_default_ticket_provider":"","_tribe_ticket_capacity":"0","_ticket_start_date":"","_ticket_end_date":"","_tribe_ticket_show_description":"","_tribe_ticket_show_not_going":false,"_tribe_ticket_use_global_stock":"","_tribe_ticket_global_stock_level":"","_global_stock_mode":"","_global_stock_cap":"","_tribe_rsvp_for_event":"","_tribe_ticket_going_count":"","_tribe_ticket_not_going_count":"","_tribe_tickets_list":[],"_tribe_ticket_has_attendee_info_fields":false},"product_cat":[281,1712],"product_tag":[453],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n