Buch is an artist from Gadigal land, Sydney Australia. Her work ranges from craft-based sculptural pieces in ceramics or textiles to performative and interactive artworks. She is interested in themes such as the domestic, the ‘feminine’, pedagogy, craft and storytelling. For her MFA she has been building a body of work responding to the Early Children’s Book Special Collection at Headington Library. Through her research, Buch has been attempting to activate a collection that used to be a teaching resource, but is now confined by the archival process. Buch has been unpacking the delights and dilemmas inherent in historical material.
‘Around the Text’ is an exhibition that was located in the Headington Library in the Headington Hill Oxford Brooke’s campus. The display was located across 3 Floors of the library and can be found on Level 1 and 2 outside the library entrance and in the Special Collections Room. ‘Around the Text’ explores the book as a package – a vessel for its stories and asks what makes a book come to life outside the meaning of its written words? Buch’s display focuses in on the covers, titles, illustrations, typography and borders of children’s books to speculate how they heighten the themes in a given piece of writing. The artist’s selection also examines how themes of nature, rural life and magic are expressed in the collection. The artworks in conjunction with her research for the exhibition and threaded these through the display. The artworks employ materials linked with the domestic sphere to connect them with the idea of the book as a domestic object.
‘Around the Text: Discovery’ was an exhibition located in the Richard Hamilton Building and The Glass Tank and was the second iteration of this research driven body of work. The show aims to unpack the multi-faceted relationship that one has with historic children’s books. Through its curation and artworks it tries to unpack the experiences that we have with these books, whether it be pleasure and joy, nostalgia or criticism. The exhibition aims to balance these kinds responses in a carefully curated experience so that you are able to navigate these feelings while wondering around the room. The primary theme of this exhibition is ‘land’. It looks at the idea of land and its relationship to storytelling (travel/adventure), colonialism, rural culture and as a material (clay/hay). Notice the landscape of the room is also designed to resemble landmasses, so that while you are contemplating the exhibition, you are also navigating a simulated global landscape.
Here is an interview I did about the exhibition.
Around the Text Photos
Around The Text: Discovery Photos
Rachel Anne Buch 