Future Library

The challenge of creating something that will still have meaning over a hundred years from now is one that Scottish artist Katie Paterson has undertaken with her Future Library project, a living work of art spanning an entire century. One thousand trees have been planted in the Nordmarka forest near Oslo in order to supply paper for a library of new books to be printed in one hundred years’ time. A different author has written something new for the project each year since 2014; their contributions have not been published, however, so over time an anthology of one hundred sealed works will emerge. Until their publication in 2114, all the manuscripts will be kept in the exclusively created Silent Room of the new Deichman Library in Oslo. Some of the authors involved in the project include Margaret Atwood, Karl Ove Knausgård and Ocean Vuong.

For the Kultursymposium Weimar 2021, artist Katie Paterson and curator Anne Beate Hovind talk about the significance of their work and the appeal of a dialogue with future generations.

Host: Martina Puchberger, Goethe-Institut