To support Carruthers’ vision for the exhibition as ‘A library of people, places and things written in Canada’, PUBLIC WORK collaborated on the design of a reading landscape for the Âjagemô Gallery exhibition space. The installation took the form of a sequence of hybrid landforms — part library stacks, part topographic fragments. The result created a dual reading within the gallery space: As both a landscape and as exhibition content. The design borrowed its functions from a traditional library reading room—a setting for reading and for discussion, with signage for navigation and participation—but infused it with the spatial qualities of a landscape. In this case, a modular topography that created a distinct ground level experience of enclosure, paths, and distant views.
The exhibition landforms enhanced the illusion of a vast, abstract landscape within the small gallery interior. By manipulating the ‘green stacks’ to achieve various spatial and functional effects (for example, ‘cuts’ to create a working ledge to host exhibition objects), forms emerged with both placemaking and display in mind. Colour (six shades of green) was used to reinforce the spatial effect of perspective in the reading landscape and define thematic zones for the exhibition content: People, Places, Things. The exhibition landscape provided an engaging physical environment that showcased the Governor General award-winning books alongside manuscripts‚ authors’ notebooks‚ and other literary artifacts‚ as well as a spectator space at the core of the gallery designated as a reading space for book clubs and further collective discussion.