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Extended Library

A person sits on a chair in the center of a dimly lit room, reading from a sheet of paper under a warm spotlight. The audience is seated in a circle around them, with bookshelves visible along the walls in the background.
An audience sits in a dimly lit room facing a large projection screen displaying the title “Excerpt from the stage production Herkunft.” Three people are seated at the front in discussion, with floor-to-ceiling bookshelves visible in the background.
Two people are seated on a stage in front of a large projection screen displaying the book cover of Lava. Rituale by Rike Scheffler. One person reads from a book into a microphone while the other listens; small tables with glasses of water stand beside them. Tall bookshelves are visible on the right side of the room.
A person stands barefoot on a stage, supported by two forearm crutches, tilting their head upward. Text fragments are projected onto the screen in the background.
A person wearing a hat stands in silhouette in a darkened room facing a large projection of cacti in a landscape. Two smaller monitors displaying additional video works are visible on the left, with floor cushions arranged in front of the screen.

In times when resources are available online from anywhere, the role of libraries must be reconsidered. How can they serve not only as repositories of knowledge, but also support artistic knowledge production? And how can they remain relevant as social spaces within an art academy? These questions are addressed by the Extended Library at HFBK Hamburg. To this end, the 150-square-meter entrance area of the library was transformed by the Hamburg-based architecture firm asdfg into a transdisciplinary space for learning, working, and discourse, making the connection between theory and practice, production and mediation tangible for students, researchers, and visitors. At the center of the program’s conceptual focus are performative forms and formats.

A permanent part of the Extended Library is the work Group Hug (2023) by Valentina Karga, basic professor of design at the HFBK Hamburg from 2018–2024, which consists of various pillow objects laid out in a circle on the floor. The shapes of the pillows refer to the body of a prehistoric phi-idol from the artist’s homeland, Greece. In Valentina Karga’s speculative fiction, these prehistoric idols are the promise of a world where nature and culture, human and non-human exist in harmony. For the pillows, the features have been abstracted and detached from each other: they are no longer tied to a figure, but form a collective body. Sewn from natural cotton, the pillows were treated with natural pigments and dyes such as wood, eucalyptus, and dyer’s madder, and are filled with wool to strive for environmentally friendly production. An earlier version of the work was part of the solo exhibition Well Beings at the Museum für Kunst & Gewerbe Hamburg. The cushions were hand-dyed by textile designer Garance Maurer and produced by the upholstery company Samuel.