Following my two recent installations that both functioned as public reference libraries and the release of Of the Subcontract (2013), this talk sought to frame those activities within and against the much broader cultural history of English public libaries. In re-tracing this history, I tried to attend equally to the civic institutional library as well as its dissident temporary counterpart, to question the kinds of public-ness that library-related artworks might help us to imagine.
The talk, organised by the Liverpool Biennial, can be viewed in full below.