Reading the Library

An exhibition on feminist and de-colonial approaches to systems of ordering knowledge at Stiftung Sitterwerk St.Gallen

Libraries are vital sites for access, activation and dissemination of knowledge. They are places of strict organisation, standardisation and discipline. Knowledge is here highly formalised and ordered into categories, thematically as well as spatially. The exhibition asks about the methods and practices of describing, naming and classifying, focusing on the library catalogue. It proposes addressing the difficulties and structural inadequacies of classification and making them transparent for those using the library.

As a central element, a syllabus is developed that illuminates the socially and historically produced orders and hierarchies underlying the library catalogue. Designed as a process, the exhibition and syllabus will be in conversation with practitioners, collectives and projects working on alternative models which propose decolonial and feminist methodologies for reforming normative concepts of validating, preserving and making available.

The regularly updated syllabus can be viewed and read online on syllabus.radicalcatalogue.net.

See info and context of the exhibition “Reading the Library” here