The Stacks opens the doors to the reference collection stacks at Hull Libraries, and examines a hidden accumulation of literature, records, surveys and maps, de-allocated from view by perceptions of value and public interest.
In 2021, an initial six-month research residency enabled a unique investigation into the vulnerability of written histories, through the lens of the reserve stocks and material in the labyrinthine structures - hammered metal echo-chambers walled by peeling 60’s pastel paint, lit by a gallery of waning amber bulbs and shards of grey light from Edwardian windows - behind the lending libraries that are open to the public every day. Extending and building on the learning which took place, in 2023, a second engagement project culminating in the exhibition INTERMITTENCE took place at Hull Central and Branch Libraries.
Intermittence is an invitation to join a continuous journey, unravelling and re-assembling the ways in which we think about our place and position in a rapidly changing, and susceptible environment. Previously hidden periodicals and historical material dating from the 18th century to the present day, ranging from the academic to the personal, begin to guide us through this.
These insights, like small embers, are momentary indicators of things to come. Collected together, and presented beside visual responses generated by workshop participants, they provide a gathering light for investigating how our understandings of climate are changed and shaped by the rotating spheres of influence, memory and time, within us and around us.
INSTALLATION VIEWS (Hull Central Library, September 2023) credit Ruby Deverell
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Periodical
This periodical was produced to accompany Intermittence, documenting outcomes and responses generated through workshops.
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Branch Libraries
Explore the satellite Intermittence installations at Ings and Fred Moore branch libraries, focusing in on Environmentalism and Natural History.
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Journal
Follow the journal for insights into the development of work in progress across the residency and reflections on The Stacks project.
Reading List
The Stacks 2 shared articles and extracts from issues of The Graphic, Sphere, The Illustrated London News, and The Ecologist, from between 1875 to 1980.
Original copies of ‘Climate and Time in their Geologic Relations’ (James Croll, 1875), ‘The Forms of Water’ and ‘Six Lectures on Light’ (John Tyndall, 1872 and 1873) were found in the stacks, and they informed the production and direction of the project. These copies were presented in the exhibition.
A contemporary lending collection was also made available at Hull Central Library to accompany the Intermittence exhibition, containing the following:
‘James Croll and his Adventures in Climate and Time’, Jo Woolf
‘Memory’, Baddeley, Eysenck et al.
‘This Changes Everything’, Naomi Klein
‘The End of Nature’, Bill McKibben
‘In Search of Lost Time’, Marcel Proust
‘The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History’, Elizabeth Kolbert
‘The Uninhabitable Earth: A Story of The Future’, David Wallace-Wells
‘Principles of Geology’, Charles Lyell
‘Notes from Deep Time’, Helen Gordon
‘Half-Earth: Our Planet’s Fight for Life’, Edward O. Wilson
‘After They’re Gone: Extinctions Past, Present and Future’, Marren, Boxer et al.
‘James Hutton: The Genius of Time’, Ray Perman
‘The Secret World of Weather’, Timothy Gooley
‘Material World: A Substantial Story of Our Past and Future’, Ed Conway
‘The Planet in a Pebble’, Jan Zalasiewicz
The Climate Reading Art Group (CRAG) met in the lending library in October 2023 and the following is a list of recommendations and suggestions arising from discussion between the artist, curator, and project participants:
‘Feral’, George Monbiot
‘Entangled Life’, Merlin Sheldrake
‘One Hundred Years of Solitude’, Gabriel Garcia Márquez
Concepts: Experimental Archaeology, Shifting Baseline Syndrome, Trophic Cascades
The texts selected for this session as starting points for discussion included excerpts and an accompanying quote from ‘After Nature’ by W.G. Sebald, and a letter from the editors of The Ecologist, announcing the magazine’s launch, stamped received by the Chief Librarian on 7th July 1970. These are available to read online, here.
Revisit the initial six-month investigation and culminating exhibition, Bodies of Work, which took place in 2021
