I was wandering around London’s South Bank the other day, soaking up the atmosphere of my favourite city, when I stumbled across something rather fabulous in the ballroom of the Royal Festival Hall.
It’s called aMAZEme – and it’s a maze made of a quarter of a million books – with the design based on a fingerprint.
It’s not just an art installation. It’s a living breathing salute to the books that we all love.
The whole thing was created by Marcos Saboya and Gualter Pupo out of second hand books or remaindered books donated by publishers.
They laid the walls in a pattern inspired by the finger print of Argentine writer Jorge Luis Borges.
I spent quite some time wandering around the maze – finding books there that I had read and loved.
Books by my favourite authors. Books by my author friends.
I didn’t see any of my books – but it would have been an honour to have one there.
The most amaze-ing thing about it was the connection people had to the books. People were invited to walk through the maze – to open and read the books. And they did.
They wandered along the walls of books – exclaiming when they found a treasure. Some people pulled books out of the wall, and laid them on the top as they flicked through the pages – reminding themselves why they loved that particular book.
There was a low wall of kids’ books – where the children could read. And even a wall of braille books.
As people interacted with the books, the structure changed. Walls got just a little bit higher. Or lower. A books moved from one place to the next. It really was as alive as the stories inside the books themselves.
I just loved it.
I know some people who would say something like this isn’t really art… but I would argue that they are wrong.
It made people smile. It made them think. It made them feel. Isn’t that what art… any art – be it writing or painting or a giant maze – is all about?
