Open Library

March – July 2021

Open Library* is a community programme between a group of students from the University of Fine Arts in Hamburg, the Municipal Library of Tavros and the local residents aiming to encourage social interaction, through design. The programme is developed by a diverse group of practitioners with interdisciplinary backgrounds and with a strong community engagement. Key point to their inspiration is the multicultural nature of the neighborhood of Tavros.

Along with addressing particular needs of the library such as designing book and children’s furniture indoors and resting infrastructures for the visitors outdoors, the project further aims to foster multivocality within the library’s expanded collection of books and its public representation. A selection of books in the most spoken languages in Tavros including Albanian, Urdu and Punjabi has been made by the students and were gathered with much care from various places. A multilingual visual campaign of banners and posters has also been designed, aiming to bring extra focus to the presence of the library in the area. Extra attention has been given to the outdoor and entering space of the library, which has now a brand new façade. This small public area has been fully revamped and planted in collaboration with the Agricultural University of Athens and is a now a vivid, green and accessible place, where residents can enjoy relaxing moments of reading.

Open Library is aiming to provide a welcoming reading environment that appeals to a broad public audience, creating daily encounters between neighborhood residents.

*The programme was initially imagined as a two-week visit to Tavros in dialogue with professors Valentina Karga and Jesko Fezer and their students from the Design Department of the University of Fine Arts in Hamburg. Due to covid19 and the mobility restrictions applied around the world, the programme was split among the two groups and its first part, Open Library, was realized remotely, over the spring semester of 2021 in collaboration with Valentina Karga’s class, the Municipal Library of Tavros and Olga Hatzidaki, curator of the programme. Online classes, numerous e-discussions and site visits to the library by the local stakeholders concluded to a flexible and diversified community programme. The second part of the community prorgramme with Jesko Fezer’s class will take place during the autumn semester, either in Tavros or remotely, depending on mobility restrictions.

Team

Curator: Olga Hatzidaki

Design of the programme: Hfbk University of Fine Arts Hamburg / Design department: Prof. Valentina Karga, Seda Yıldız, Ronja Soopan, Jeanie Brell, Nele Oetjens, Maria Rincon, Irini Schwab, Josefina Dux, Mu-Heng Tsai

Tavros Municipal Library: Marianna Stivachta

Agricultural University of Athens: Christina Miggirou

Supported by Goethe-Institut Athen

Partners: University of Fine Arts Hamburg, Tavros Municipality, Pnemautiko Kentro Tavrou, Tavros / locus athens

Gratitude

We are grateful to a diverse community who contributed greatly to the program Tavros Municipality for all the construction works at the library The Agricultural University in Athens, for donating a number of plants Stefanie Peter from Goethe Institut in Athens, for inquiring rare books Hopscotch Bookstore in Berlin, for their guidance Leonhard Emerling from Goethe Institut in New Delhi, for tracking rare books Farrah Batool from Goethe Institut in New Delhi, for tracking rare books Yorgos Boutros, for offering to install the library banner Murtaza Latif, for translating into Urdu Konstantina Kanani, for translating into Albanian Lexikopoleion Bookstore in Athens, for donating second-hand books