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Jocelyn Robert
^^Lelectronics

The Nova Library at the downtown library: bringing the lives and thoughts of drug addiets out o f the shadows and into the wider public sphere.

Willy Burroughs would be proud

G

funniest part of it wasnegotiating between the
uess what? Junkies read.
library which works on a three-week timeline,
Anyone who says that's something they
with groups in the Downtown Eastside, who
knew already - that they'd never assume
are so often in emergency crisis mode they
drug addicts can't maintain a rich, literate
lifestyle, just like middle class, comfortable folks don't know what they're doing in two hours
much less three weeks from now. There's a
all over the city - well, those people are lying.
completely different sense of time and prioriThey're lying, and covering up fear. The idea
ties."
that the general public shares such an intelThough he's worked for the past decade as
lectual hobby — and therefore an intimate cona guest artist at the San Francisco Art Institute,
nection — with drug addicts can be disturbing,
Winkler has kept residences in New York
to say the least; it's one more hole in the wall of
City and Berlin. But the effect of his work has
' "us" and "them".
At the downtown branch ofthe
Vancouver Public
BY MARY FRANCES HILL
Library, the proof is
'l^f8PM 4 0 8PM 4 C ) 2PM&-8PM
on the racks, thanks
t for this evening's performance and receive a
to Berlin-based artist Hans Winkler, and Glen
rippled through communities
ill winter class at the Harbour Dance Centre.
Alteen, director ofthe grunt gallery.
the world over.
The Joys of Motherhood by Buchi Emechata,
As a master of "social
The Catcher in the Rye, Alice Munro's Runaway,
sculpture" Winkler sets up
Kafka's The Trial, Stephen Mitchell's Tao Te
situations to provoke social
Ching — dozens of books enjoyed by the averaction and interaction, In 1997
age thinking reader sit in the Nova Library, a
Winkler sunk a gondola in a
quaint corner on the library's first floor.
Venice canal (see the photo
ofthe sinking on the front of his home page,
The difference here is that every book has
hanswinkler.de). In the mid- 1990s, Winkler and
been chosen by drug users in the Downtown
some cohorts skirted security guards at the
Eastside. This is their reading list.
Statue of Liberty, snuck into the structure and
IYC
r-/TveMusicekCboirs
Winkler, a Berlin native who works and lives
placed red gel screens over Lady Liberty's
in the U.S. and Europe, got the idea a couple of
3leau
PIANISTS: Linda Lee Thomas, Terence Dawson
lights. It took officials three hours to fix it.
years ago while strollipg through the Downtown
etta"
PERCUSSION ENSEMBLE: Sal Ferre/as,
Vern Griffiths, Robin Reid, Jonathan Bernard
Eastside on a visit with the grunt gallery's Glen
For one of his most innovative projects,
& the...\fen£<ffjp|r''Chamber Choir and the
Alteen. "In Vancouver I walked a lot around in
Winkler talked a shepherd into giving over
Elora Festival Singers
the Downtown Eastside and I saw many drug
his shack high in the Italian Alps. The artist
users sitting and reading," he says. Once the
then outfitted the shack with bookshelves,
idea for a drug addicts' library took shape, he
stacked them with books donated from varigot a great response from organizations like
ous European philosophers, and offered brave
VANDU (Vancouver Area Network of Drug
visitors a key to the shack at the base ofthe
Users), who corralled a list of about 500 books
mountains.
— "a beautiful, wide-ranging collection", says
Even with an uphill trek to the shack that
Winkler. "I had the feeling they got the idea
took visitors hours, Winkler's shack was wildly
immediately and they liked it, so it became a
popular for seven years (until it collapsed
very democratic public intervention for the pubunder the weight of an avalanche).
TICKETS
lic library."
That Winkler hails from world-class cities far
Inspired by writer and renowned drug user
from Vancouver's shores has not been lost on
William Burroughs, who authored Junky and
some critics. The grunt gallery even published
ip Sales 604-^32-5003cxt.20\
Nova Express, Winkler called the project, approran article critical of Winkler's outsider status —
tick.etiuaster.ca &f balletbc.com priately enough, Nova Library.
as someone'not entrenched in the Downtown
The Nova Library project turned into a lesson in
Eastside culture — in its magazine grunt.
/as
organizational culture. "It seems that everything *
That outsider status may be part of
QM/FM
that started easily became more and more cprri- P Winkler's point. He's the intervener—the
plicated... ultimately, that negotiation teoame,
observer who sets up the work, and then
part ofthe Nova Library project — "getflfi^Wo
walks away."l try to intervene in the city, work
worlds into a conversation or dialogue>%:-. ^ .
with their symbols, my impression ofthe city,
Alteen echoes that frustration, laughiriQ^Hha and with people to involve their ideas into the
memory of a struggle that sounds bizatfe*teday"
art piece, to build a kind of'social sculpture,'" he
1 by Wednesday, Nov. 9th.
"It took a huge amount of work to g e f a
says. "The work should be part ofthe fabric of
I be contacted by phone.
bunch of books into the library," he says. "The
the city and intervene on it carefully." EH

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