THE AMERICAN LIBRARY COLLECTION (WRITERS) 2017

Yinka Shonibare made this installation using books covered in 'African' wax cloth. But here’s a twist: these textiles were originally inspired by Indonesian batiks, mass-produced by the Dutch, and sold in West Africa. This isn't just a quirky design choice. Shonibare uses these fabrics to spark conversations about cultural identity and colonialism. Each book is a marker of intellectual territory, hinting at the complex, layered histories that shape our understanding of 'American' literature. Think about the labor involved here, not just the intellectual labor of writing, but the manual labor of production, the textile mills, the printing presses. The shelves present these books as a collection of cultural artifacts that prompts us to consider how our sense of identity is crafted from a mix of global influences, challenging the neat categories we often use to define ourselves. Shonibare uses materials and the process of making to invite us to rethink cultural boundaries, asking: what does it really mean to belong?