Recognizing that “libraries have shifted from institutions primarily thought of as places for checking out books, and have merged into community centers for connection, communication, interaction, and, most recently, arts sharing,” the Somerset County Library System of New Jersey -- together with its partners at coLAB Arts -- welcomes two artists and educators to its branches.
“Libraries are incredibly important spaces for intergenerational and intercultural community collection and connection,” said Dan Swern, co-founder and producing director of coLAB Arts.
“SCLSNJ has embraced their role to document and share the stories of the Somerset County community. coLAB Arts is grateful to be able to play a small part in this work, through introducing art as an avenue for community development and storytelling.”
Last year, the National Endowment for the Arts awarded coLAB Arts and SCLSNJ a $75,000 Our Town creative placemaking grant. Through this grant award, the library system installed artists-in-residence at the Manville and Somerville branch locations.
“Libraries are known for welcoming everyone into our spaces; our community is our lifeline,” said Rebecca Sandoval, technical services manager and grant coordinator. “This partnership with coLAB Arts - to host Artists-in-Residence - is a wonderful way to not only support artists, but to add a new layer of engagement with our community. We look forward to the stories our community will share, to watching the creative process first-hand, and seeing how these stories will be transformed into a work of art.”
Conceptual artist, photographer, and educator Diane Wah-Zuercher is the featured Artist-in-Residence for the Manville branch, located at 100 South 10th Ave.
Wah-Zuercher, a Columbia University graduate, said, “I spent many hours in the library during my younger days and it’s where I feel that I really discovered myself as an artist. The library was definitely my safe space. My most vivid memory of the library was getting my first library card in elementary school. My mother would take me twice a month and I would always come home with an armful of books for FREE. It just blew my mind.”
Conceptual artist, photographer, and educator Diane Wah-Zuercher is the featured Artist-in-Residence for the Manville branch, located at 100 South 10th Ave.SCLSNJ
Wah-Zuercher spends her days as an educator at the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York and spends her evenings as a practicing artist and avid reader.
“I have a deep relationship with my book collection,” said Wah-Zuercher. “My favorite book genres growing up were philosophy, fiction (primarily science fiction), and history books. The most influential books for me were probably ‘A People’s History of the United States’ by Howard Zinn, ‘Power/Knowledge’ by Michel Foucault, ‘Assata’ by Assata Shakur, and ‘The Twilight Zone (Complete Series)’ by Rod Serling.”
Performance artist, choreographer and educator Sarah Dahnke is the featured Artist-in-Residence for the Somerville branch, located at 35 West End Ave.
“I’m excited about the library as a community hub, as a space where we can all come together and exchange, as a space that is not charged with particular expectations,” said Dahnke. “In a library you can just be. You can be in conversation with others, or you can quietly be with yourself. The public library is for everyone, and we have so few spaces where that feels true.”
Performance artist, choreographer and educator Sarah Dahnke is the featured Artist-in-Residence for the Somerville branch, located at 35 West End Ave.SCLSNJ
Dahnke -- who has been a guest artist at Tulane, Princeton, UCLA and New York University, and worked alongside Marina Abramović -- is a movement artist who hopes to bring the “glorious celebration of dance” to the library system.
“I spent a lot of time with my mom in the library as a child,” said Dahnke. “While she would browse for her next few books, I would have the freedom to wander the stacks, pulling out whatever looked interesting. I didn’t want to spend much time in the kids section and was much more interested in the ‘real books.’ I have memories sitting on the floor of our local library, holding large, heavy books that I couldn’t yet read or understand, flipping pages to find words or illustrations that I could make some sense of. The sense memory is still deeply embedded in my psyche; I remember exactly how our library smelled.”
“My small home library is full of memoirs and nonfiction,” said Dahnke. “I love reading about people’s lives, learning about different experiences and seeing how they’ve overlapped with my own. I also love doing research, and often when I have a seed of an idea for a project, I’ll immerse myself in nonfiction around the topic. Two memoir-style books I have loved over the past year are ‘Long Live the Tribe of Fatherless Girls’ by T Kira Madden and ‘On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous’ by Ocean Vuong.”
To learn more about the Artists-in-Residence program, email grant coordinator Rebecca Sandoval at rsandoval@sclibnj.org. To learn more about coLAB Arts, email grant partner Dan Swern at dan@colab-arts.org.