Candace Lewis

To honor the American Library Association’s (ALA) 2024 BANNED BOOKS WEEK, Brown-Daniel Library is exhibiting oversized-book sculptures that TSU & local high-school art students created to highlight & challenge the rise of censorship. Brown-Daniel’s exhibit is part of UNBANNABLE LIBRARY*, a collective exhibition spanning multiple library locations at Fisk, Vanderbilt & Austin Peay universities.

UNBANNABLE LIBRARY is intended to serve as a platform for dialogue about the importance of intellectual freedom & the role libraries play in celebrating, not suppressing, voices. By presenting the exhibition across public & private institutions in Middle Tennessee, UNBANNABLE LIBRARY highlights libraries’ valuable role in fostering knowledge & encouraging open conversations with voices other than our own.

Each library exhibit features groupings of mixed-media books up to 6’ tall & 7’ wide which are designed to amplify texts & images subject to censorship. The three (3) sculptures exhibiting at Brown-Daniel Library are:

• “At the Junction of Structure & Imagination” by TSU senior Ashley Mintz & her mother, Gwendolyn
• “Good Trouble/Empty Majority” by Steve Graham’s AP art students at local MLK High School
• “The Book of Keys” by Michael Mitchell’s Art & Social Practice students at TSU in coordination with
  • professional mural artist Charles Key (aka lowkey)
  • Missy Lindsey’s art students at local McGavock High School
  • a community activation at Slowdrip Coffee which developed friendship safety pins students used to stich media to oversized canvas pages & bindings.

Exhibit visitors are invited to flip through the books’ larger-than-life pages to immerse themselves in the fabrics & textures chosen to convey voices from such banned and/or challenged titles including: “ADVENTURES OF HUCKLEBERRY FINN,” “COLOR PURPLE,” “HARRY POTTER,” “HUNGER GAMES,” “OUR BODIES, OURSELVES,” “SKIPPYJON JONES,” “WHERE THE SIDEWALK ENDS” and “WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE.”

Besides interacting with the sculptures through touch & scent, some of books referenced in them are available to borrow from Brown-Daniel Library. Please ask Library Staff for assistance finding them in our General & Youth Collections.

*UNBANNABLE LIBRARY is made possible with generous support from the Woodward Library, the Center of Excellence for the Creative Arts (CECA), Humanities Tennessee, Artville, Vanderbilt University, & the Engine for Art, Democracy & Justice (EADJ).