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CHICAGO: Chapters 2 and 3
August 2026 – Theatre Y
3611 West Cermak Road, Chicago 60623
Did you know that nearly 4,000 books have been banned in school districts throughout the United States since 2024? And that marginalized voices are suppressed by banning books that reflect diverse experiences? Would like to help raise awareness about book banning and motivate others to take action?
Conceived and created by Ohio-based book artist, Amanda Love, and NON:op sound artist, Christophe Preissing, Inventory of Lost Books is a series of four performance-installations connected via a historical narrative about book suppression and a possible future. This participatory installation will take place in August 2026 (Theatre Y) and March-September 2027 (Cleveland Public Library).
Chapter 2: The Sorting Room (Judgment)
A small, dimly lit space filled with towering stacks of books, an oversize desk and cataloging cabinet, and an overhead sorting system. Navigating this narrow, chaotic environment, visitors find themselves amidst piles of books reaching from floor to ceiling. A system of pulleys raising book-filled baskets rises overhead. The sound of humming lights and ceiling fans fills the air; a voice counts and accounts for the books; whispered words and bits of words emanate from the book piles. In the background–and foreground–one hears crowd sounds, mechanical sounds, doors and gates opening and closing, books closing, and wheeled carts. When doors open and close, another sound–louder and worse–invades the space. The oppressive atmosphere reflects the restrictions placed upon literature, emphasizing the pervasive tension that censorship creates.
An attendant (a librarian?) is sitting at the table which is piled with books. Sorting through individual books, they read passages, make notes, consult the filing cabinet, and stamp books with the ominous words “RESTRICTED,” “BANNED,” or “WITHDRAWN.” Visitors are encouraged to participate in these collective acts of sorting and processing—grappling with the moral ambiguities of censorship as they confront the weight of editorial power and its implications. This interactive dimension invites reflection on their role in the narrative—the burden of both silence and the authority to silence.
Viewers know what is going on here, it’s horrifying, and they cannot look away. Seduced into active participation, they collaborate because they are afraid, want to join a group activity, and truly believe they are doing the right thing for themselves and their families. Forced to make a decision, visitors are torn between right and wrong, wrong and right. Which is which?
Chapter 3: Destruction and Decay
Visitors are corralled into Room 3, stepping up into a large, expansive space. Engulfed by video projections of fire and water across its four walls, and standing on a vibrating floor, they are immersed in the sounds of fire and water as well as the sounds of destruction–chopping, ripping, crushing, banging, grinding. The sound of an angry mob–screaming, cheering, jeering, shouting–wafts through the room. Books, burnt or drenched, appear to float off the walls, mounted at varying depths as if suspended in a moment of destruction. The emotional tension is heightened by the vibrations and voices.
A worker enters the room dragging a large bag of book pages and sits down next to an industrial-sized shredder. They have a job to do. The floor is covered with shredded paper.
Destruction–institutional, group, or individual–is both intentional or passively unintentional. Individually motivated or in the frenzy of a mob, knowing, unknowing, doing, and not doing. As new knowledge is acquired, and delivery systems change, destruction and decay are the result of disuse and obsolescence. With destruction there is fear. Fear of the new, the unknown, the different, and the fear of fear itself. Maybe you cheered, maybe you jeered, maybe you just did nothing to stop it. What is wrought by the act of destruction? Destruction comes in more subtle forms too, and as it is more insidious, there is greater risk. “What have I done?”
