KARYN OLIVIER

Please visit my blog at: karynolivier.blogspot.com.

NOW OPEN!! ACA FOODS FREE LIBRARY, Hartford, CT. This public work was part of “Rockstone and Bootheel,” an exhibition of contemporary Caribbean art at Real Art Ways. The library was recently profiled in the Caribbean Review of Books, a bimonthly journal–caribbeanreviewofbooks.com.

I  installed a functioning library inside ACA Foods market. This exclusively Caribbean library is open to all patrons of the market. The books are organized by category (i.e. literature, history, children) and arranged on shelves alongside the customary products and provisions sold in the store.
This is a trust library—no library card necessary, no proof of residence required, no specific date of return. Customers are allowed to take out one book or several at a time. Borrowers are only asked to return the book(s) when they are finished digesting them.
The hope is for this library to expand what we imagine the “consumables” of a market to be—particularly when that market inadvertently traffics in nostalgia for home. Perhaps it can be a place where we really slow down, browse, and relish the sights, smells, tastes, sounds, and yes, the imperishable produce of my West-Indian heritage.
CATALOG COMING SOON!!

INBOUND: HOUSTON, Fall 2009

INBOUND: HOUSTON is a public art project which took place this past October and November in Houston, Texas. Billboard advertisements were replaced by photographs of the surrounding landscape along the city’s major freeways. A catalog of the project is forthcoming.