PQB News Interview | 'Shelf Memories’ exhibition by Parksville photographer opens soon at MAC
Sophia Conway’s latest photo series captures personal handwritten notes found in used books, with one dating back to the Great Depression. Shelf Memories: The Invitation is a new digital collection gathered over the last six months and inspired by Conway’s love for books. It will be on display at the McMillan Arts Centre in Parksville from Feb. 2 to April 28, and is a follow-up to her exhibition Shelf Memories, hosted last spring.
“I enjoy used books, especially the little free libraries in the community or at the thrift store and so I’ve seen lots of annotations and some of them are really amazing,” Conway said. “What encouraged me to start it was my husband’s grandmother. She wrote an annotation, a little message in a book she gave to my son after he was born and then unfortunately a year later she passed away.”
The book and the message became extra special, since they are the only thing Conway’s son has from his great grandmother, Conway added. “I think it communicates this love and care from this person that he’ll never get to meet, that loves him deeply so I think it was that moment that I realized how precious these things can be and so I really wanted to capture them.”
The notes offer little glimpses into personal relationships, even if the books were given away, and Conway hopes to immortalize the forgotten notes. Her favourite from this exhibition is a Sunday school hymnal gifted to a little girl moving from the UK to Canada. When she noticed the date, Conway realized it had been written in the midst of the Great Depression. “It just revealed so much more to me about why this little girl and her family were immigrating,” she said. “They were probably in search of jobs and this new life abroad in Canada, and the fact that I had found this book in Canada means they arrived safely but also I think as an immigrant myself it just really spoke to me deeply.”
The earliest book she found annotated was dated to 1910. “It really is a time capsule. It’s this little glimpse into the past, into people’s lives.” Conway plans to make the exhibition interactive and encourages people of all ages to bring a new or used book (or use one provided at the gallery) to inscribe a story, memory, letter, prose, poem, quote, joke or more on the first page. The inscribed books will be photographed and then added to the MAC’s new little free library, to be launched on May 1.