Reading the Migration Library is a project of Vancouver-based artist LOIS Klassen.

For the B R U N A presentation of the project, Klassen discussed the visibility and audibility of "migration culture” with particular emphasis on the way visibility is deliberately thwarted in anti-immigration policies. She also provided context about her overall approach to publication and distribution as an artist and researcher. An open mic on the subject of human migration followed her talk, and she set up an informal chapbook exchange. Everyone who attended received a complimentary chapbook, of their choice, from the traveling library.

ABOUT THE PROJECT

Reading the Migration Library is an archive of multi-form publications (images, poetry, narrative texts, and more) that describe personal experiences with human migration and displacement. This collection is designed for easy distribution and public circulation. Other publications from Reading the Migration Library will be available for visitors to assemble and take away or to locate on-line browsing and reading.

See: https://lightfactorypublications.ca/rml/

ABOUT THE ARTIST

Klassen is a Vancouver-based artist and writer whose work combines research and creative methods. Her projects, including Renegade Library, Comforter Art Action and Slofemists (in collaboration with LORI Weidenhammer), combine collective actions with public dialogue and exchange. Her texts have appeared in Word Hoard, Fillip, Public Journal, Border Crossings, LIVE! Performance Art Biennale blog, and more. Her work has been hosted by Anvil Centre, Santa Fe Art Institute, Mentoring Artists for Women’s Art and Plug In Summer Institute in Winnipeg, Banff New Media Institute, SOMA Summer Institute in Mexico City, Charles H. Scott Gallery (Emily Carr University), University of Salford in Greater Manchester, Glenbow Museum, Western Front, Art Gallery of Southwestern Manitoba and more. She is currently a doctoral student of Cultural Studies at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario.

Reading the Migration Library was previously hosted by Anvil Centre’s Artist in Residence program and the Santa Fe Art Institute Immigration/Emigration Residency. It is supported by Graduate Research-Creation/Community-Based Research and Action Fund, Cultural Studies, Queen’s University, Kingston, Ontario.

The growing list of Reading the Migration Library participants (authors and content contributors) includes:

DEANNE Achong, OANA Capota, FREDERICK Cummings, MARGARET Dragu, FRANCISCO Fernando Granados, ALAN Hill, SANDEEP Johal, KAITLIN Kazmierowski, SARAH Klassen, FRANCI Louann, GRAHAM McGarva, MISTIKO (DAWN Livera), KAREN Ngan, PEGGY Ngan, CHRISTINE Riek, KATTIA Samayoa, NATASHA Sanders-Kay, ELISA Yon

Photo Credit: LOIS Klassen, Reading the Migration Library (chapbooks); ELISA Yon, Dwelling (furniture for migration books and their exchange)

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

We acknowledge that the activities of Bruna Press + Archive take place on the sacred and ancestral home of the Lummi and Nooksack peoples. We are grateful for their loving stewardship of the land and its inhabitants, and intend to be good guests and neighbors as we recognize their sovereignty and rich cultural practice + heritage. We set this intention first by making acknowledgments and then by practicing reciprocity. We are grateful to be able to share this space (both physically and culturally) with indigenous communities from here and elsewhere.