British artist, Abigail Reynolds, winner of the BMW Art Journey will unveil her project The Ruins of Time: Lost Libraries of the Silk Road at Art Basel later his month.
A five-month-long exploration into the complex religious and secular narratives of Europe and Asia, Reynolds journeyed along the Silk Road by motorbike to investigate the sites of former libraries she discovered in her research, and document what she found at each location. You can read her fascinating travelogue here http://bmw-art-journey.com/journey/abigail-reynolds
Reynolds said of the project, “A library is a compendium of knowledge, a group identity. I went to places where all that meaning has been voided, recently or in the distant past. The journey itself was challenging and huge, encompassing three quarters of the globe, traversing multiple cultures, none familiar to me. The journey brought me to the edges of my knowing, just as the lost libraries brought me to the edge of visuality.”
Reynolds’ journey took her to sites in China, Uzbekistan, Turkey and Iran dating from 291 BC to 2011. Where she gathered material in various forms including 3D scans, photography, microscope imagery, written text, plans and cataloguing systems. Based on this extensive research, she has created a cluster of book forms, prints, collages and moving-image works which will be on display at Art Basel.
Images, texts and other documents originating from the trip are going to be included in a book – thus completing a journey that both starts and ends with the institution of the library.