Join Dr Caren Florance as she presents a lecture on her 2024 National Library Fellowship research into artists’ books (books made by artists as art), how the National Library came to collect them, what problems arose with cataloguing them, and how they inspired a broad, vibrant collection of Australian artists’ books that continues to grow.
Entry is free to this event but bookings are essential.
The talk will be available to view live online via the Library’s Facebook and YouTube pages. You do not need to book a ticket to watch the event online.
Dr Caren Florance is a 2024 National Library of Australia Honorary Fellow.
About Dr Caren Florance’s Fellowship research
The National Library has a fabulous collection of artists’ books, or books made by artists as art. In the 1980s the Library collected a small group of books made by staff and students of the Canberra School of Art’s Graphic Investigation Workshop (GIW). Run by Czech artist Petr Herel and populated by a constellation of local and international artists, the GIW was ostensibly a drawing workshop that treated the notion of ‘drawing’ as a philosophical construct rather than a defined process. Encouraged to meld text and image as visual reimaginings, the GIW produced books with strange pages: unbound, often sculptural and rarely conventional. Dr Caren Florance has been researching how the Library came to collect these early books, what problems arose with cataloguing them, and how they inspired a broad, vibrant collection of Australian artists’ books that continues to grow.
About Dr Caren Florance
Dr Caren Florance is an Adjunct Assistant Professor at the University of Canberra’s Centre for Creative and Cultural Research. She is also a maker of artists books, often in collaboration with writers and other artists.
About National Library of Australia Fellowships
The National Library of Australia Fellowships program offers researchers an opportunity to undertake a 12-week residency at the Library. This program is supported by generous donors and bequests.
Image credit: Wendy Muche, Meatshop [detail], 1984, nla.cat-vn2866647. Photograph courtesy of Dr Caren Florance.
