Sadie Plant: Comment Lire a Bookshelf in Einem Buch

A work inspired by lost, found and discarded books becomes a book in its own right

This volume is based on an installation on a railway platform at a train station in Biel, Switzerland. Author and artist Sadie Plant (born 1964) transformed an old phone booth into an exhibition space with two bookshelves, each with titles arranged to resemble a public "library" of free books. The installation also included around 20 short poems by Plant, which could also be accessed online by scanning QR codes: these now appear as texts alongside images of the original stacks of titles. Comment Lire a Bookshelf in Einem Buch also contains installation shots, including images of members of the public interacting with the work, and essays by Plant and Anne Koenig, reflecting on the work and its context. In this way, a work that was inspired by and mainly composed of lost, found and discarded books now becomes a book in its own right.