Worn and weathered through age and use, every detail tells a story of the book’s history. An Archive of Time: A Life Lived in the Boston Athenæum explores the open-shelf collection in the Boston Athenæum – bringing attention to the tears, folds, broken spines, and cobwebs that map the surfaces of the books. This project highlights and celebrates these details instead of shunning them as imperfections.
Standing in the stacks, there is a sense of being surrounded by the impact of everyone who have ever been influenced by these books. There is evidence of those who have left their mark on the books, and who have likewise had the books influence them. This photographic archive freezes the library as it exists currently, creating a new timeline apart from the original. Similar to facsimiles of books created for accessibility and preservation and how the original material and the facsimile will continue to age and change, but in different ways and at different rates.
