The Living Library pop-up at Landmark Arts Centre

Posters on easels at the entrance to The Living Library exhibtion. On the left, ‘The Library as Ecology’ (Dr Katie McGettigan) with plant images and historic texts. On the right, the exhibition poster, in deep red and pink, with an open ‘book’ at the centre showing some of my origami paper poem deer.

On Sunday 9 November, I showed works by Small Birds Press at an exhibition of eco-poetry at Landmark Arts Centre in Teddington. The Living Library was a one-day pop-up – we were there at 8am to put together the stands and install everything in time for the 11am opening. In fact, co-curator Briony Hellon-Hughes and I had been up till late the previous evening too, making the information tags for the exhibits, which were in the form of handwritten library cards.

The exhibition was billed as: ‘a day-long festival of multisensory creativity inspired by the natural world. Wander through an ecosystem of exhibited poetry curated by experts from Royal Holloway, University of London. Explore new approaches to bookmaking and nature writing through hands-on demonstrations, performances, and workshops…’

The event was part of the Being Human Festival 2025, the UK’s national festival of the humanities.

The event was led by Briony, with whom I co-curated exhibits and the programmes of films and performances, as part of my role with Royal Holloway. The exhibition was supported by the Poetics Research Centre and Humanities and Arts Research Institute (HARI), with Professor Redell Olsen and Dr Katie McGettigan. My installation included cyanotype prints from my SCRUB project (through a residency with Singing Apple Press), pamphlets and other works published by Small Birds Press, new projects like ‘Insect Interventions – and other selected invertebrates’ (cuteswarm is the first publication from this), recently completed full 78-card Taro as Deer deck, and Deer/Dear, my collaboration with Cat Chong.

Other featured exhibitors included Camilla Nelson, Susie Campbell, Astra Papachristodoulou, Greg Thomas (Oo Press), Rachel Marsh, Helena Hunter, and MA and PhD students and recent graduates from the Poetic Practice and Poetry pathways at Royal Holloway. You can see more photos from the day, including from the performance programme, on my @carolineyolande Instagram, and in this wonderful film documenting the exhibition, made by Briony, with selected readings and QR codes to audio descriptions and narration.

It was a fantastic day of amazing, inventive and beautifully made poetry, stand-out performances, fascinating conversations – and a chance to do some one-to-one ‘readings’ from my tarot deck.