WORLD OF THE BOOK, 2024–2025

ANNOUNCEMENTS

5 July

Our two artists’ books, With Wings Outstretched and Quivering, and its hand-painted box, and Something Reverberated, and its box, shown alongside a related zine of the same title, can be seen alongside some of the beautiful source material, as part of World of the Book at State Library Victoria.

World of the Book
Dome Galleries, Level 4, The Dome
State Library Victoria
328 Swanston Street
Melbourne

Tuesday 25th of May, 2024 – Sunday 18th of May, 2025

Inspired by the Collection
World of the Book

All artists are in dialogue with art’s history, and its present. The library’s rich book collection has long been a source of inspiration for artists working in many media.

This display highlights the special resonance of our natural history collection for select Victorian artists whose work is concerned with the form of the book. The resulting artworks and artists’ books have in turn been added to the state collection.

Shown alongside the historical works that have inspired them, these contemporary artworks also celebrate the power of art as activism at a time when the fragility of our natural world has never been more evident.

The artists and natural history section of World of the Book features:
John Cotton's original sketchbooks of birds from the Port Phillip District (known as Victoria after its separation from the Colony of New South Wales in 1851).

A monumental work by Martin King, Tree of Life, Diary of Lost Souls in Twenty Volumes, created for the City of Melbourne's CLIMARTE exhibition that draws directly from John Cotton's sketchbooks and the beautiful Fitzroy Gardens.

A response to the natural history collection by contemporary Victorian artists' book creators Gracia Haby and Louise Jennison, with their inspirational fusion of words, collages, drawings and prints.

State Library Victoria