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Below, from left
The forests of Nordmarka where the trees that will provide the paper for the books to be printed on grow. The Silent Room is designed to evoke feelings of simplicity, purity and quiet
BRIEF ENCOUNTERS
Future Library is artist Katie Paterson’s ‘100 year prayer’ to the idea that books – and people – will survive into the next century. Veronica Simpson witnesses a major landmark in this project’s evolution in Oslo
FEW CREATIVE ENDEAVOURS I have written up over 30 years as a journalist are as remarkable as Scottish artist Katie Paterson’s Future Library. Born of her love of books and trees, and trying to articulate the connection between the two, it entails 100 writers being asked, one a year, to submit an unread manuscript, which will be locked away in an Oslo library until 2114. Ten the manuscripts will be liberated and the books printed on 1,000 trees that were planted in a forest to the north of Oslo at the start of the initiative in 2014. In this way, it is ‘constructing a bridge between today and tomorrow’, as Paterson says. Of the many remarkable things about this project, the fact that it ever happened is the foremost of them. It crosses so many boundaries – including temporal – and yet that very unusual collision of visual and conceptual art, creative writing, architecture, tree husbandry and librarianship is what translates this alchemical mix into gold. Te artist describes it as a ‘100 year prayer’ sent out in the hope that people, books, trees, writers and reading will survive into the next century. Somehow, she found a fertile bed in which to germinate this unlikely idea in Norway, where she first encountered the cultural movers and shakers who have facilitated and funded the project 12 years ago. And then the
power of the idea communicated itself around the world to a pretty impressive array of writers. Canada’s Margaret Attwood was the first in 2014, followed by the UK’s David Mitchell, then Icelandic poet and screenwriter Sjón. Turkish- born writer Elif Shafak followed in 2017, then Korean Man Booker-prize winner Han Kang, Norway’s own literary king of existential angst Karl Ove Knausgard (2019), the Vietnamese- American novelist and poet Ocean Vuong (2020) and Zimbabwe’s brilliant philosopher and writer Tsitsi Dangarembga (2021). Te choice for 2022 had yet to be announced at the time of writing.
All seven of these have now submitted their unread manuscripts to be locked away in a brand new Silent Room, which was finally unveiled to the public in June 2022. And I was lucky enough to attend the three-day jamboree which celebrated this momentous landmark. Tere was a conference among the trees at the stunning 19th century farmhouse gallery Galleri F15 in Moss, an hour north of Oslo, where Paterson is currently enjoying her first solo show in Norway. Here, we had the pleasure of listening to Paterson, Mitchell and Sjón discussing their involvement in the project and their musings on its time-travelling, mind- expanding power. As Sjón said: ‘A work of art, a poem composed…is a gesture of hope,
From right
The New Deichmanske Library, where the Silent Room that will house the manuscripts is located. The contours of the Silent Room are formed of 16,000 wooden blocks stacked in layers
because it’s a gesture against destruction, against our deep, full knowledge that one day we will not be here.’
Ten there was the ritual of a walk in the Nordmarka forest to the clearing where the Future Library trees were planted in 2014. Tis has become – or had, until the pandemic halted it for two years – an annual event, attended by all those who wish to join the half hour procession and manuscript handover, as well as livestreamed around the world to Future Library fans.
More than 200 people turned up this year, which also buoyed the mood in the forest, as Dangarembga and Knausgaard handed over their unread books to Paterson. Tere were music, speeches, even some Buddhist chanting (as requested by Vuong, who could not attend as he had contracted Covid-19 just as he was due to fly to Norway). Tis was followed by a conversation with the writers in the newly built
RIGHT: JOLA JOSIE
FAR RIGHT: EINAR ASLAKSEN
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