The Librarian of Babel as a conceptual space entered the scene in 2015. Artist Paula Billups created a portable scriptorium, known as The Portable Library, to create collaborative micro-histories of various gatherings. She conducted collaborative events in Boston and Toronto to create unique chronicles of public and private events. Micro histories are sometimes unearthed via the gathering of ephemera in various places, a practice Billups named microtemporal archaeology. She created records in various cities including Berlin, New York, Boston, Toronto, and Montreal. She based a story on some of these experiences in her book “PAPER: A Tale of Berlin.”
Now as Head Librarian at the Librarian of Babel, Ms. Billups is working with international curators Dermis León and Quintín Rivera Toro to create the Babel Masks exhibition and catalog.
The show subject asks this question: as masks become a part of daily life, and artists create the future, what will our masks look like in 100 years?