… As if braille becomes a starry sky

So if one says that this one…. If it comes a little more like this, then it becomes such a…. If it so to speak, but I don’t know, with… uh… the easydrape. What happens then…? Then it becomes narrower… or one walks around there…and… then it becomes more open on that side, and a little less here. So it’s a bit this thing with the angles, so actually we should lower everything down again, and test angles here and there. And then move it and raise it up. That’s how I can feel… to understand the spatial.

But I just wonder one thing as well… because it kind of feels cramped and a bit much here. What happens if those two hang… here…. Or those two, that are not movable… that they are kind of, either here or… but there is also something that is nice about such a massive wall….”

Soon we will visit the City Library in Malmö with a new version of “The Milky Way Library”. With experiences from the latest version at Rosengård Library, we bring with us some scenic constructions and solutions, some favorite materials and objects, and add new ideas and approaches.

It is Monday afternoon at the beginning of March. We are 5 colleagues who together search our way forward. Slowly the new library format grows forth. Our striving to create an accessibility and a curiosity into the library world, for our target group, is in full progress in our workspace. We try, feel, discard, try again. How do the shadows fall, is the distance too long here? Does a wheelchair fit in between here? Does the difference in weight between these book boxes become far too subtle or should we use just a little more plaster? Is this form too clear, as if it really shows that it is a letter, or is it possible to see the B more as a form?

How can we approach the library world from a more open and sensory perspective, where the book as a physical object and the writing as a visual image and tactile surface, open for new ways of being in, inhabiting, and relating to a part of the library’s room, its activity and function as a meeting place for all the inhabitants of society?

In the open experimentation that is our working method, we test our way forward carefully. It is at times a laborious and intuitive work, where decisions about large clear scenographic constructions coexist with very very small details. A carefulness and care around both the small and the large, has through the years shown itself to be significant for the overall experience. Our different experiences within dance, movement, scenography, light and sound interact in a way of working where everyone has insight into everything, where everything is connected and affects one another.

it is… it feels a bit…. from those at the side. Then maybe we get more…that is to say that the room grows a little if it…because these also have some sort of fun function …it could be nice, maybe …that is to say that we can stuff these full, and then something happens with the light as well… that it goes out by filling the whole shelf, but if they are too close to a wall, then…maybe it doesn’t work…

Yes, exactly… there is something very special about… when it becomes as it is supposed to become later, then visually it will be that there is a whole stack here, and a whole stack there, they look the same, it is the same color, it is just that this one, it changes. I think that it is sort of something that…. and that it is… that it has something to do with libraries, with … regularity, and then we have a regularity here but it still sort of just… OOPS! With these fabric sausages up here the form remains but still not.

Already now, the collaboration with the library feels very good. The people we have been in contact with at the library have been very positive and interested. It also means a lot that we have already collaborated with the City Library before, when we had a guest performance with Lilla Spiralen. So this becomes a continuation of an already established collaboration.

It took some time before we found a suitable room. The fantastically beautiful room we first planned for unfortunately turned out not to work. The issue is physical accessibility. Since many in our target group use different kinds of wheelchairs, it is absolutely necessary that the venue can be reached regardless of the type of wheelchair.

In the end we found a new solution, and we are now very happy that the foyer to the Red Room, on the street level near the restaurant, will be the place that we, during one week in April, will transform into a space accessible for our target group.

But it feels a bit like you could be inside a book… or I don’t know… but what happens if we use… can I try… it might end up a little further away… if something ends up here… I don’t know where it ends up… back there, no maybe not… but if you go through, it becomes completely different with the light… small movements and still a lot happens…. And then the wheelchair fits here.

And here a completely new corner has now appeared as well!

But this is really nice… like braille becomes a starry sky. And then it’s like these

characters are no longer here, they have ended up here instead.

But can I ask one thing, this fabric, can it replace what we had before? And now the calm corner… because this can be…. somewhere else… but here, through these, you can meet through here again. But it could be here, because then the shadows come… but do you mean that this whole piece ends up here instead?

You could also hang the white pieces here, or is it better that they are here…

There is still a lot of work left, but slowly a new room begins to emerge, a new version of “The Milky Way Library”.

It’s going to be very exciting!

Text: Herman Müntzing

Foton: Anna- Majje Wik