Looking through the archives

It's amazing what you come across in the library.

As we start to sort through boxes of uncatalogued materials waiting to be added to our collections we came across this:



The reel is labelled ' CLR James/Stuart Hall Interview' BBC 1976. This is a sound recording only as the original tv recording no longer exists, this tape is the only record!

Luckily this recording has been transferred to CD, which is now available in the Stuart Hall Library collection. It is the only known audio recording of this interview.

A transcript of the interview is also available in the library and will be added to the archives.



You'll be surprised what you can find in the Stuart Hall Library. To search our collections you can visit the library catalogue here. As we prepare for our annual closed week in August we will hopefully be able to spend some time looking through our backlog of uncatalogued material, who knows what we'll find!

Football in the library

As the World Cup approaches we have been looking through our library and archive collections for all football related materials. We have found some incredible catalogues and examples of artists that use football as a primary focus in their work, as well as a range of academic, literary, and cultural studies texts that explore football culture in great depth.

In 1997 Iniva and Manchester City Art Galleries collaborated in the exhibition Offside! Contemporary Artists and Football. The exhibition catalogue published on the occasion of the exhibition is available here in the Stuart Hall Library.



We also have a wide range of slides, ephemera, and press cuttings documenting the exhibition and publication available exclusively to the library. Contact us for more information about accessing the archives.


Below is a list of exhibition catalogues, monographs, books, av materials, and articles relating to football in art, literature, and culture. All of these materials are available to the public Tuesday - Friday 10-5pm in the library. Please let us know if you would like any further details on these materials and how to search for materials in the library library@iniva.org

Books


Artistas and futebol
Galeria Grossman
1986
Catalogue of an exhibition on "Artists and football" organized on the occasion of the 1986 World Cup. Artists include: Aldemir Martins; Emile Tuchband; Fang; Francisco Gallotti; Fulvio Pennacchi; Gustavo Rosa; Harry Elsas; Haydea Santiago; Inos Corradin; João Calixto; Juarez Machado; Sonia von Brüsky; Vicente Do Rego Monteiro; Vincenzo Cencin.
815.6 ART


British Asians and Football : culture, identity, exclusion
/Burdsey, Daniel
Routledge
2007
In spite of a great passion in the game and significant involvement at amateur level, British Asians are under-represented in professional football. This book asks how and why this situation has developed, using extensive interviews with British Asian football players to offer an insider’s assessment of the difficulties and conflicting demands faced every day. In addition, the book also critically examines the work of the anti-racist football movement, questioning the strategies and policies designed to eradicate racism and asking whether other approaches might be more effective or reflective of the views of the players themselves.
ESS BUR


Em jogo = On side
Centro de Artes Visuais
2004
Published on the occasion of an exhibition held at the Centro de Artes Visuais, Coimbra in 2004 to coincide with the European Football Championship 2004 in Portugal. Artists include: Joao Pedro Vale and Branca Bastos; Paulo Cunha e Silva; Holger Kruse; Durate Amaral Netto; Albano Silva Pereira; Jonathan Monk; Vik Muniz; Francisco Queiros; Laura Green; Miguel Amado; Andreas Gursky; Adriana Molder; Manuel Graca Dias; Eduardo Souto Moura; augusto Brazio; Paulo Catrica; Joan Nuno Coelho; Gabriel Orozco; Mark Wallinger; Jonathan Monk; Roderick Buchanan; Nicolas Bourriaud; Jeff Koons; Crispin Jones; Maria Lusitano and pedro Valdez Cardoso; Nuno Cera; Henry Bond and Liam Gillick; Stephen Dean; Leo Fitzmaurice; Nuno Domingos; Joana Vasconcelos; Ömer Ali Kazma; Pedro Letria; Augusto Brazio; Antonio Julio Duarte; Samuel Fosso; Alvaro Rosendo; Antonio-Pedro Vasconcelos; Nun Ferrari; Ana Santos; Fernando Marques (Formidavel); Luis Osorio and Pedro Rolo Duarte.
469 ONS


Fever pitch
/Hornby, Nick
Victor Gallancz
1992
An account of the author's obsession with football.
ESS HOR


Football and its fans: supporters and their relations with the game, 1885-1985
/Taylor, Rogan
Leicester University Press
1992
This work offers an account of the role supporters have played in the developments of British football.
ESS TAY


Football against the enemy
/Kuper,Simon
Phoenix
1994
This work reports the author's journeys to twenty-two countries where he tried to find out the effects football can have on politics and culture and what makes different countries play a simple game so differently.
ESS KUP


Globalisation of Football
Sage
2009
This thought-provoking text offers illuminating insights into the relationships between different places that highlight many of the key transnational aspects of contemporary football'
ESS GIU


Hosts and champions: soccer cultures, national identities and the USA World Cup
Arena
1994
This work gives the background to soccer's worldwide popularity and looks at where the World Cup has been played and how it has been won. It includes case-study chapters and general essays on the growth of the world game, the cultural meanings of soccer and the role of the media in staging the sport spectacle.Contributors include: Archetti, Eduardo; Bairner, Alan; Bromberger, Christian; Critcher, Chas; Edelman, Bob; Gosoyr, Matti; Horne, John; Humphrey, John; Jary, David; Lanfranchi, Pierre; Merkel, Udo; Redhead, Steve; Riordan, Jim; Sugden, John; Tomlinson, Alan; Young, Christopher
ESS HOS



In soccer wonderland
/Germain, Julian
Booth-Clibborn Editions
1994
Photographs on football exhibited at the Photographers's Gallery, London, in 1992.
410.111 PHO GER


My favourite year: a collection of new football writing
/Hornby, Nick
Victor Gollancz
1993
An anthology of original football writing. Contributors include: Doyle, Roddy; Pearson, Harry; Ritchie, Harry; Horton, Ed; Wicken, Olly; Taylor, D.J.; Richards, Huw; Hornby, Nick; Pierson, Chris; Nation, Matt; Brack, Graham; Watson, Don; Smith, Giles .
ESS FAV


O humor no futebol : Rio de Janeiro
Empresa Brasileira de Correios
1994
Exhibition of football cartoons.
81 HUM

Offside! : contemporary artists and football
Manchester City Art Galleries
1996
Catalogue published in collaboration with the Institute of International Visual Arts for the exhibition of the same name held in Manchester in 1996. Using photography, painting and installation the exhibiting artists (from Argentina, Britain, Colombia and Mexico) reference the imagery and text of football to explore the cultural environment of the game.Artists include: Adam Beebee; Roderick Buchanan; Freddy Contreras; Rosana Fuertes; Lucy Gunning; Crispin Jones; Gabriel Kuri; David Mackintosh; Simon Patterson; Natalie Turner; Martin Vincent; Mark Wallinger; Nick Waplington.Contributors include: John Gill; Simon Kuper; Richard Williams.
410.111 INI OFF


Passion of the people?: football in South America
/Mason, Tony
Verso
1995
Mason explores the place of football in the history of its three most successful South American exponents, Argentina, Brazil and Uruguay. He demonstrates that, from its beginnings, the game had wide popular appeal and he examines the role of British commercial and military interests as well as that of newcomers from, Italy, Spain and Portugal. He concludes by asking if the attention focused on football in Latin America today is exaggerated or whether the game truly is the "passion of the people".
8 MAS

Sport and postcolonialism
Berg
2003
Explores issues of the postcolonial sporting world and questions whether sport can act as a form of resistance in postcolonial states
ESS SPO


The trophy room
Cleveland Arts
2001
The Trophy Room celebrates a public art project by Neville Gabie for a Wimpey Housing estate that once was the site of Middlesbrough Football Ground
EDU TRO



AV Materials

Offside! contemporary artists and football
Manchester City Galleries
1996
Official video produced in conjunction with the Offside! Exhibition
VD 56


Offside - contemporary artists and football
BBC
1996
Mike Nolan, cab driver in Manchester reviews the exhibition Offside - contemporary artists and football in the City Art Gallery, Manchester. Broadcasted at BBC2, 1996.
VD 187

Articles

A game of two halves: 'English' identity fifty years after Windrush
/Malek, Bilkis
In Soundings no 10 Autumn 1998 pp.145-156
Focuses on the insights football culture gives us into the ambivalences of the English psyche.


Flat football
/Stone, Rob
In Make v.79 March-May 1998 pp.16-17The aesthetics of the pitch vs the picture plane.

'Offside!' : contemporary artists and football
/Pryke, Sam
In Third Text no 36 Autumn 1996 pp.102-104
Review of international group show at Manchester City art galleries from June-September '96.

Librarians go Gaga

Last week I delivered an adaptation of the presentation from the recent Hollywood Librarian: Take II event held in the library to members of the Brent Libraries, Arts and Heritage quarterly staff forum. In this presentation I used examples from film, television, and literature to analyse public perceptions of librarians.

One of the most interesting aspects of this presentation is the focus on the many ways in which librarians are reclaiming and appropriating traditional librarian stereotypes, and subverting these misconceptions using humour and a playful self awareness to target new library users. Unfortunately at the time of writing this presentation I did not have access to this particular clip...



Just one of the many examples illustrating some of the more fun and inventive ways in which librarians promote their services and profession.

Hopefully these representations and changing roles of librarians can be discussed at the future Hollywood Librarian III event, coming soon...

Whose Map

Today is the first day of the new exhibition here at Iniva Whose Map is it? New Mapping by Artists. The exhibition features nine contemporary artists from across the globe exploring new approaches to mapping in this exhibition of film, installation, print and audio.

Mapping is certainly the hot topic at the moment, with Crossing Boundaries a multi-disciplinary symposium taking place today at the Royal Geographical Society, as well as current exhibitions such as Magnificent Maps at the British Library.

The Library team have researched this field and we have produced a special bibliography in support of the Whose Map exhibition. This bibliography is a fantastic starting point for researchers, academics, artists exploring the field of mapping and cartographies, as well those that are interested in discovering more about the theory and practice behind some of these current mapping exhibitions. You can download a copy of this bibliography here. All these materials are available in the Stuart Hall Library and are part of our special display of mapping resources shown below.







Come visit the Stuart Hall Library to find out more about the artists involved in the current exhibition, as well as related exhibitions and multi-disciplinary texts regarding mapping. Also please do visit the Creative Mapping blog with further links to artists who work with maps.

Zines in the library

On Saturday we attended the London Zine Symposium to meet zinesters, chat to those running distro stalls, and to get our hands on the start of our zine collection.

A big thanks to everyone on Saturday who donated zines to our collection, offered recommendations, and expressed infectious enthusiasm about the Stuart Hall Library and our new zine collection. It was an inspiring yet tiring day and thanks to all the other zine librarians on the day who offered vital words of wisdom and were willing to share their expertise and resources. We managed to speak to some wonderful distros and attended some fantastic zine readings by our favourite zinesters including Charlotte Cooper and Patrick Staff (from Ricochet! Ricochet! zines and distro).

We managed to pick up a few new zines to kickstart our collection:



Here are two zines from Other Asias: The Jinah Papers and Tea Journeys which we are pleased to add to our collection. It was fantastic to find out about Other Asias work and connections to publications such as Nonel and Vovel (also available in the Stuart Hall Library). We are hoping to get many more publications by Other Asias in the Stuart Hall Library.


Throughout the day we spoke to zinesters, distros, zine librarians, and zine readers looking for zines to buy or recommended titles of zines specifically in relation to race, ethnicity and identity. Thanks to everyone we spoke to who gave their recommendations and forwarded us details of relevant distros. We are now chasing up these titles. When we asked zinesters and distros for these types of zines, most people recommended Race Revolt...



Here is the latest issue now available in the Stuart Hall Library. We are hoping to work with Race Revolt for their upcoming issue and all previous issues will be made available in the library.

The London Zine Symposium was a great way to mark our initiation into the zine community and to have these discussions regarding zines and identity as we begin to plan our zine collection within the library.

We are still looking for zine donations and probably most importantly we are continuing to ask you for recommendations of zine titles and distros. Our main focus is on zines relating to issues of race, ethnicity, and identity. But our zines will also incorporate themes of gender, sexuality, politics, music, and popular culture. The Stuart Hall Library is considered a specialist arts library so a large portion of our zine collection will also focus on the visual arts, particularly international zines. If you have any titles you would like to recommend to us or if you are interested in donating then please let us know in the comments section of this blog, or let us know by emailing us library@iniva.org

Next stop, Zine Fest at the Women's Library, Saturday 12th June. See you there!

London Zine Symposium

This weekend we shall be visiting the 6th annual London Zine Symposium Saturday 29 th May 2010 12-6pm at the Rag Factory, Heneage St, London E1 5LJ.



We will be scouring the stalls for exciting zines to add to our library collections and meeting as many zinesters as we can. There are also some fantastic talks and workshops taking place featuring readings by zinesters such as Charlotte Cooper, Josie Long, Isy Morgenmuffel, and Patrick Staff, as well some of our favourite distros and artists.

Hopefully we will see some of you there, if not then here are some other exciting zine events coming up that we will be attending:


Zine fest at the Women's Library Saturday 12th June 11-4pm




Zine swap at Peckham Space Sunday 13th June 2-5pm.

Yinka Shonibare's Nelson's Ship in a Bottle

This week Yinka Shonibare's Nelson's Ship in a Bottle was unveiled on the Fourth Plinth in Trafalgar Square, London.



Yinka Shonibare is a current member of the Iniva Board of Trustees, and has worked with Iniva in the past in the photographic series Diary of a Victorian Dandy and exhibitions such as Alien Nation pictured below.








With the spotlight on Yinka, the library is busy answering enquiries and retrieving all kinds of reference material relating to the man himself for a whole new range of users. If you want to find out more about Yinka Shonibare then come to the Stuart Hall Library. We have a fantastic collection of exhibition catalogues, monographs, articles, and audio visual materials featuring previous work by Yinka Shonibare.

In addition to these materials, the Library also has a unique collection of archival materials and documents relating to Yinka Shonibare which cannot be found anywhere else! We have slides, ephemera, press releases, audio visual material, posters, images, reviews, and interviews available in the Iniva Archive which is made available to all visitors in the Stuart Hall Library.

To find out more about our holdings and materials featuring Yinka Shonibare contact us library@iniva.org or pop in and visit us Tuesday-Fridays 10-5pm.

Call for zines

We want your zines!

Are you a zinester? Do you run a distro? Do you have an overwhelming personal collection of zines that you don’t know what to do with? We want to hear from you!

The Stuart Hall Library is expanding our collection to incorporate zines and self published material. We are looking for zines relating to cultural diversity, race, ethnicity, gender and sexuality, as well as personal zines, political zines, artist zines, and music zines etc.

The Stuart Hall Library is one of the leading specialist libraries in its field, focusing on international visual arts and British artists from culturally diverse backgrounds. The library has a unique collection of exhibition catalogues and monographs, as well as a strong focus on cultural and critical theory, diaspora, gender studies, and media studies.

The new zine collection at the Stuart Hall Library will be a unique opportunity to collect and preserve a wide variety of self published material.
With your help we want to build a unique resource which will be made available to all researchers and the general public, providing access to a wide range of self published material in keeping with the Stuart Hall Library collection, and documenting the importance of zine culture.

All donations are welcome and should be sent to Stuart Hall Library, Iniva, Rivington Place, London, EC2A 3BA. Zines will be catalogued and incorporated into the library collection. You can search for all library materials, including zines, via the online library catalogue .

We also welcome any suggestions for zines that you think would make a welcome addition to our new zine collection. Please let us know your recommendations in the comments section below or email us library@iniva.org

Stay tuned for some exciting future zine related events in the library. . .

Live Bibliograhies: a day in words and pictures

It has been over a month since Live Bibliographies took place at the Stuart Hall Library and we are still feeling the affects of this unique event. Immediately after the event the library started to receive phone calls, emails, and visits from regular library users and those who up until recently were completely unfamilar with the Stuart Hall Library; all wanting to discuss, view, hear, and interrogate the Live Bibliographies performance.

For those unable to attend we are currently working on uploading the video footage of this event. In the interim we have an audio recording of the poems performed by Joyful Noise available from the Iniva website .

A booklet was also produced combining introductions detailing the research project, full text of all 8 pieces, as well as an accomanying bibliography. This booklet is now available in the library collection. A PDF is also available to download.

Below is a series of photographs documenting the performance.

Artist Trevor Mathison and technical support Barbara Lambert working in the library stacks. Trevor combines Charlie's images with his own and film pieces and audio live during the performance.





In addition to the performance space, a number of library materials selected by Charlie were displayed near the library entrance. A film of dictionary definitions selected by Charlie was created by Trevor Mathison and played on a loop adjacent to the display of library materials. The dictionary definitions related directly to specific texts such as Whose Heritage? The Impact of Cultural Diversity on Britain's Living Heritage (ACE, 2000)and provided a playful commentary on the lexicon of cultural diversity and policy.





An example of an image found in the Stuart Hall Library, selected by Charlie, edited by Trevor, and used to underpin a live performed piece. This specific image is Diane Fonesca's Pastime,2004 taken from the exhibition catalogue States of Exchange : Artists from Cuba Iniva, 2008.





Librarian Holly Callaghan introducing Joyful Noise and explaining the scope of the research project.





Joyful Noise performing against a backdrop of images taken from the Iniva archive.





Joyful Noise mid-performance against a backdrop of several images taken from the exhibition catalogue Ghada Amer: Reading Between the Threads (2001).





Q+A with Trevor Mathison, Joyful Noise, and Holly Callaghan.




A member of the audience asks a question.


The performance continues to receive a strong response and very detailed feedback from new and existing library users. I have attempted to address the main points of feedback below so that everyone can benefit from the points raised.



Why have you chosen to stage this in a library? Do you feel that this might alienate your intended audience?
Many people were curious as to why a piece of performance poetry and accompanying audio visuals were staged in a library setting. As a librarian this connection between research and performance has never felt strange or alien. It is now almost commonplace for libraries across a wide variety of sectors to stage performances of music,theatre, live art, performance, poetry, film etc in a library setting to promote their collections and invite audiences to question the notion of a 'library' and the role of research as an interactive process.
This was not a simple case of organising a live poetry event, which could have been staged in a more traditional performance setting rather than a library. This was a research project with the very specific aim of bringing the Stuart Hall Library and Archives to life, exploring non-traditional art histories, and bringing the library collection to the general public. In doing this we succeeded, the majority of attendees on the day were not regular library users with many having never visited the library before.

Will the library be doing more of these events? Can we expect a similar performance in support of the next Iniva exhibition?
The library would very much like to continue to bring the library collections to life in new ways such as live performances and debates. Live Bibliographies was a very specific research prject examining cultural diversity in the arts in support of the Progress Report exhibition. We are definitely interested in doing something similar in the future to support the work of Iniva and will be looking at future performances in the library.

Why wasn't this an evening event?
Live Bibliographies was originally planned as an evening event as part of Iniva's late Thursday openings, however due to scheduling issues this was not possible. Progress Reports had a very full and exciting calendar of public programming which we were very fortunate to be a part of. We appreciate that being scheduled during the day on a Saturday has implications on those able to attend the event. The scheduling of the event also affects the way in which it is viewed/enjoyed/discussed. For future performance events we are hoping to schedule the performances as an evening event.

We received a lot of amazing feedback from the day itself which is providing the library with extra encouragement to start planning the next event...

"...very inspiring, well organised, and great idea to place it in a library..."

"...a very good use of such a wonderful resource and expanding what the whole nature of the archive/library is all about..."

"...It was great to see the library brought to life in this way. I really hope there will be more library events like this..."

"...I'm impressed the way the library has been transformed through the artist's work and experiencees. The way it comes back to you and interacts with private memories and thoughts is inspiring..."

"...A tremendous resource that deserves to embrace many diverse events and continue to be innovative..."

"...Wonderful performance - evocative visuals and words that dug beneath subjects that have been turned into cliches or trivilaised by media and politics. It would be good to use these performances to trigger debates around the topics raised..."

"...I believe this to be a direction to pursue further, engaging artists with libraries and archives..."

Thank you to everyone that attended and engaged with the performance and the project. Thank you to Chalie Weinberg and Trevor Mathison for creating a piece of work that allowed this collection to come to life. Thank you to Obinna Nwosu for producing this project and supervising the collaborations.

The library is currently working on our next project, an evening event to promote the launch of the engage journal. Live Bibliographies has provided a much needed revitalisation and is inspiring the library in all aspects of our work. Thanks to the event we have seen an increase in visitors to the library, an increase in enquiries, an increase in the use of the bibliographies produced by the library, and an active engagement with the library and archive from those who up until recently were not familar with the Stuart Hall Library. So, what's next?...

Live Bibliographies : documenting the reserach project

Back in summer 2009 we approached the performance poet Charlie Weinberg (Joyful Noise) to collaborate with the librarians for an upcoming library event. We wanted noise, we wanted movement, we wanted energy. We wanted the library to come alive and prove that the role of research, libraries, and archives can be vital attributes in exploring artistic practices.

In December Charlie began a comprehensive research project, exploring the library and archives and working with the librarians to fully engage with the resource. Progress Reports: art in an era of cultural diversity is the current exhibition by Iniva at Rivington Place; a group exhibition exploring the interpretations of cultural diversity in the arts. Charlie's performance was scheduled as the library response to this exhibition.

The Stuart Hall Library collections focus on contemporary international visual artists as well as British artists from culturally diverse backgrounds. The library and archive is a collection of artists that remain somewhat invisible, celebrating new art histories and providing contextual resources and a framework of cultural theory to postion these artistic practices within social and political discourse.

In other words: the Stuart Hall Library is absolutely vital in the discussion of cultural diversity in the arts and this time we wanted to do more than simply produce a comprehensive bibliography in support of this exhibition and accompanying public programme.

Live Bibliographies: Performing the Text is the Stuart Hall Library's first experience of a live performance event which may seem odd given its artistic setting and its original design to facilitate live events. Libraries across all sectors are providing public events in their library space such as music performances, live theatre, talks and seminars, play sessions, workshops, comedy, poetry and spoken word. This is a new venture for the Stuart Hall Library and a new audience for Iniva as we aimed to promote the event to the spoken word and poetry community.

The research process was one of the most engaging and exciting projects I've been involved with at the Stuart Hall Library. It was interesting to view the library through someone else's eyes and being faced with questions such as 'Why do you classify the books like that?' 'Why aren't there more books like this?' 'Why don't you own anything by [enter artist's name here]' What makes this an archive?'

At the start of the project I compiled a basic bibliography covering the history of Iniva, showing examples of cultural diversity policy, and also examples of exhibitions and artists as an introduction to the scope of the upcoming exhibition. Charlie used this bibliography as a map, weaving her way around the library. Each listed item inspired a new set of questions, and for each item retrieved there was always some nearby book or journal to serendipitously stumble upon to start a new trail off the beaten track.

The majority of the poems comissioned in this project were written within the library as Charlie was influenced by specific texts. As time progressed and the exhibition became open to the public, Charlie was able to respond to specific pieces within the exhibition, retreating to the library just a few minutes later. The pieces were written over the 3 months, some in relation to orignal project brief given by the librarians, some in relation to specific artists and texts, some in direct response to the Progress Reports exhibtion.

After the initial research period and once the poems had begun to take shape, Charlie began to explore ways in which the library space could be used for this performance and how to make this Live Bibliography come alive. Charlie went back to the idea of the bibliography as a map and her initial idea was to attach threads to the shelves, creating a tangled web of links across the library collection. Another idea was for Charlie to perform the poems while moving through the library, so that members of the audience were invited to view and/or follow Charlie's path through the library shelves.

In relation to working on the aesthetic of the performance, Charlie began to collaborate with artist Trevor Mathison who created a series of visual pieces from photographs taken by Charlie in the library specifically for the performance. These images reflected some of the materials used for research including images from books and journals selected by Charlie. The original bibliography included texts focusing on cultural diversity policy such as the Arts Council reports Towards Cultural Diversity (1992) and Whose Heritage? The Impact of Cultural Diversity on Britain's Living Heritage (2000) . Charlie isolated key words and phrases from these reports, including dictionary definitions of particular key words which were then incorporated into a visual piece created by Trevor to support the live poetry performance.

The collaboration with Trevor added a new dimension to the work, incorporating audio and visual responses to the pieces. The use of an audio visual display in response to the poems defined the use of the space for performance with Charlie to appear agains the backdrop of projected images. However Charlie still aimed to add movement to the performance demonstrating the full use of the library space, which has been utilised in particular for one poem aptly titled Library.

Live Bibliographies takes place this Saturday 20th February 2:30pm in the Stuart Hall Library. For information about the event please visit the library website. To book a free place at the event please contact bookings@rivingtonplace.org 020 7749 1240.

Full documentation of this event will appear both in the library collections as well as online. We will be updating the blog post-performance with images and links to audio visual recordings of the performance.