Awarded $1000 FEAST grant

Books by local collaboratives hand crafted and shared by a network of readers.

Project Summary
The underground library is a full-scale book-making and distributing project aimed at resuscitating the literary impulse with mystery, community, DIY verve, and innovation. Through the hand-crafting and self-distribution of 6 limited-edition hardcover books annually (70+ per edition), the group will:
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Publish works by members of The Metric System, Red Bucket Films, and other New York/Brooklyn based collaborative communities.
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Distribute them through an Heirloom process whereby books are passed through peers, their name retained on a library card, and access given to a community web space, in addition to past publications.
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Establish a web component facilitating community discussion.

How will your proposal manifest itself at the next feast?
A reading of the first published work will commence at the next FEAST, along with a distribution raffle to give out 10 Heirloom books to “ambassadors” within the FEAST audience, initiating and encouraging the books’ travel through the larger FEAST circuit.

How will you use funding (approximate $500-$700) towards the project?
Funding for the underground library would be used to purchase inexpensive book-making supplies for book production, facilitate the creation of the on-line forum, and launch each underground library publication with public readings by published and un-published members of the community.

Why is this project critical to the FEAST community?
Creating an alternative to the internet-encouraged “get anything, anytime” impulse, the group hopes to recapture a personal, valuable experience with artwork by distributing projects along a community circuit – whereby books are passed along based on close relationships rather than wide-scale marketing strategies. Each Heirloom book carries a trail of signatures, and becomes a collaborative space wherein an individual experience can be understood as shared amongst a larger whole. A value placed on physical objects uses self-distribution to encourage face-to-face interaction, and empowers individuals as arbiters of work they believe in, with considerable hand in the trajectory it travels.