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On September 17, 2011, in the wake of the 2008 Great Financial Crash, a protest known as "Occupy Wall Street" began in which participants brought tents and camped in a small park near Wall St., Manhattan. The protest quickly mushroomed and spread to other cities in the US and around the world. Movement participants brought books to the camps to read and share, and camp libraries quickly arose.
On November 11, without warning and in the middle of the night, authorities across the US evicted the camps in a coordinated sweep, hauling protesters' tents and equipment, including the libraries, to land fills. In NYC alone, more than 3,000 books catalogued by camp librarians were lost.
The OccLibrary project was initiated by Carolyn Sortors in 2011: a rolling collaboration with other artists in which the destroyed camp libraries were figuratively reincarnated in various forms, "using aesthetically-informed strategies to lure awareness toward empowering info." Many of the collaborating artists are credited below in connection with various incarnations; click on the titles for images &/or more info. |
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Working Groups |
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An exhibition at the MAC, Dallas, 2019-01-12 – 02-23, contextualizing the permanent installation at the MAC of the physical library assembled for use in various OccuLibrary incarnations and reviewing some of the achievements of the Occupy movement and its offshoots. By Carolyn Sortor & Michael A. Morris with contributions from various OWS "working groups" and others including Akshat Tewary of Occupy the SEC and Josh Snodgrass of the Alternative Banking Group..
A video made for the show by Sortor and Morris with public participation was also selected by Glasstire for presentation on its YouTube channel, and in 2021 prints from the show created by Sortor were also exhibited at the Metropolitan College of New York in connection with the tenth anniversary of the Occupy movement. |
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art as social wormhole |
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A reading group/“artificial MFA” course in classic and recent texts on aesthetic issues relating to art's potential to speak to or influence social or political realities; 2013-10-27 – 2015-05-31. Syllabus here; Tumblr here (see posts addressed to "social worms"). The group’s home base was The Reading Room gallery, Dallas, and it also met at other venues exhibiting art relevant to the readings. The syllabus was determined by group consensus, and it and the texts remain online for anyone interested. Organized by Carolyn Sortor for MAP 2013; with Karen Weiner.
The "social worms" also created the Barona Botanicals event in collaboration with Leah Foster's Barona Bus. |
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Secret Sociality |
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An installation of an intimate, partially-hidden library of books and other materials relevant to art and social issues, in the Eastfield College main gallery, 2013-10-12 – 12-06. Two gigs of "secret" info were also delivered to visitors who signed up for it. By Carolyn Sortor with Jeremy Massey for MAP 2013. |
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Co- Re-Creating Spaces |
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An exhibition at CentralTrak, Dallas, 2012-11-17 – 2013-01-05, surveying how artists are questioning and re-imagining such systems as the law, the media, history, the economy, etc., with works by Morehshin Allahyari, Amy Balkin, Aram Bartholl, Oliver Ressler, Irina Botea, Martha Colburn, eteam, Cao Fei, Yevgeniy Fiks, Martha Rosler, Dread Scott, the Yes Men & Steve Lambert, et al. Co-curated by Carolyn Sortor & Michael A. Morris. Exhibition catalogue here; tumblr here. |
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Werkberg OccuLab |
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A rolling sculpture housing selections from the OccuLibrary library, with a slideshow projection inside showing various artists' photos of their work spaces. By Greg Metz with Cassandra Emswiler & Kristen Cochran. (Click through the first photo for more.) |
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451 degrees |
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A card catalogue/sculpture for the OccuLibrary library, created by Karen Weiner with Celia & Frank Eberle; exhibited at the Co-Re-Creating Spaces exhibition (see above). |
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Yankee Doodles Sing-a-Lot Sing-Along |
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A series of participatory programs of art- and music-making for young artists, offered on various dates 2012-13 at The Reading Room, Oil and Cotton, and the Dallas Museum of Art. Created by Danette Dufilho, Anne Lawrence, Regina Yunker Rudnicki, & friends. |
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A project initially created by Carolyn Sortor & Lizzy Wetzel as a sidewalk installation/video shoot as part of the Fallas Dart Air, 2012-04-14 – 28, with a second shoot by Sortor & Michael A. Morris in the MAC's parking lot on 2018-11-03. In both shoots, members of the public were invited to be videotaped reading either their own favorite quotations or their selection from a compilation from great artists and other thinkers assembled by Sortor. The resulting video using footage from both events was shown as part of the Working Groups show (above) and is hosted by Glasstire here. |
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| The library of books and other materials assembled for the OccuLibrary has been permanently installed at the MAC, Dallas. Donations of materials as well as other support are welcome. More about the OccuLibrary incarnations at: |
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The OccuLibrary tumblr – 2013-09-09 – present. |
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The OccuLibrary blog – inception – 2013-09-09. |
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History of the OccuLibrary as of 2013-12-31. |
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