Of Potential Interest to WRBG Members

when a book holds your memories

Lesia Maruschak, artist
LJ 119, Thomas Jefferson Building
Thursday November 2, 2023
5:00-6:00pm, Talk, Discussion, and Collection Display / 6:00-7:00, Community Bookmaking
Please register for this event HERE
For questions, contact Stephanie Stillo at ssti@loc.gov

To mark the 90th anniversary of the Holodomor, 1932-1933 famine-genocide in Soviet Ukraine, Lesia Maruschak will premiere a new in situ installation created especially for the Library of Congress. Titled, when a book holds your memories, the new body of work will become part of Maruschak’s Project MARIA; hailed by the National Holodomor Genocide Museum (Kyiv, Ukraine) as one of the most important visual arts exhibitions addressing the famine-genocide. when a book holds your memorieswill provide the backdrop for a discussion of her three books on the Holodomor, two of which are in the collection of the Library of Congress, Transfiguration and MARIA. Maruschak’s third fine art publication in the series Transfiguration: Spirits & Traces will be released in November 2023 and will be on view for the event.

In addition to a talk by Maruschak,when a book holds your memories, will include a community bookmaking activity for visitors. Reminding us that there is no one correct way to narrate history, visitor will encounter a room filled with photographic images of blurred portraits, sacred books, and landscapes blended with Soviet posters, excerpts from soldiers’ notebooks and pages from children’s readers. Visitors will be invited to take pages from the stacks, sew them together and create their own books—what Maruschak calls “containers for memories.” No experience required and all ages are welcome to participate! These newly created containers of memories will be included in Maruschak’s larger body of work on the topic.

About the Artist
Lesia Maruschak is an artist working across photography, performance, and the staging of ambitious installations within the landscape. Her practice is underpinned by rigorous research examining the land, histories of colonization, geopolitics, and exile. She has exhibited at 65 museums, galleries and art spaces worldwide. The National Holodomor Genocide Museum, Kyiv named her mobile memorial Project MARIA as the most important exhibition on the Soviet Ukraine famine-genocide. Maruschak’s monograph Maria won the Kyiv International Book Festival Grand Prix Award and Experimental Book Award and was shortlisted for the 2019 Rencontres de Arles Book Award and the Athens Photography Festival Book Award.

Maruschak’s highly coveted limited edition art books are held in numerous collections including the National Art Library, Victoria & Albert Museum, Thomas Watson Library at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Maison Européenne de la Photographie, Boston Athenaeum, David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library at Duke University, Green Library-Special Collections at Stanford, Rare Books & Special Collections at the Library of Congress, and Butler Library-Special Collections at Columbia University.

Maruschak is the founder of the MENEZVUT and VYDNO Collectives and her work is supported by the Canada Council of the Arts, the Ukrainian World Congress, the Canada First World War Internment Recognition Endowment Council and numerous private foundations.  Maruschak is the recipient of the General of Canada Silver Medal Award and Caring Canadian Award, Ukrainian Canadian Congress Saskatchewan National Builder’s Award, and the Ottawa Woman of Inspiration Award. She is currently a Research Affiliate at the University of Saskatchewan, Prairie Centre for the Study of Ukrainian Heritage. Lesia Maruschak (b. 1961) currently lives/works between Ottawa, ON, and Alvena, SK. She graduated University of Saskatchewan (MA), University of Ottawa (MBA) and completed fine art studies in the United States and Romania.


We acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts and the Franko Family Foundation.

Position Announcement: Fellowship Coordinator for Antiquarian Book School Foundation

The Antiquarian Book School Foundation is accepting applications until September 30, 2023 for the position of Fellowship Coordinator. This part-time, primarily work-from-home position involves managing the CABS-Minnesota Diverse Voices Fellowship program. 

The full job description and application form are available at this link

Prospective applicants with questions may contact Michele Wan at michele@bookseminars.com or sign up for a time to chat with her here.

Of Possible Interest: Artist Talk at LC!

Artist Talk: The Nightingale & Commissars:  From the Neva to the Hudson
Thursday, July 27, 2023 at 3:00pm
Rosenwald Room (LJ 205)
Rare Book & Special Collections Division
Jefferson Building, 2nd floor

Join the Rare Book & Special Collections Division at the Library of Congress for a rare opportunity to hear Soviet-born New York book artist Mikhail Magaril talk about the need for “an artistic paper book” in our electronic times. Magaril will present his most recent projects, which focus on themes of the artist’s freedom and lack of freedom. He will also discuss his inspirations, from Hans Christian Andersen to Joseph Brodsky, as well as his own life experiences.  Magaril will be joined in conversation by longtime collaborators Michael Weintraub and master printer Peter Kruty, who will add to the discussion of how concepts can be expressed graphically.  The group will show tools and the original forms from which the books were printed. 

The talk will be accompanied by a display of Magaril’s works from Library of Congress collections.  Magaril’s books are produced in editions of only a few copies.  They weave elements of history with humor and evocative representations of Leo Tolstoy’s alphabet books, fairytales and Jewish folklore, and Soviet Army songs.  Magaril has illustrated works by Nikolai Gogol and Daniil Kharms, offered a purely visual interpretation of the Russian fable Masha and the Bear, and produced a set of color portraits of riders on the New York Subway.  His collaborators have included other prominent printers, photographers, and cartoonists.

This event will be filmed for later viewing on the LC website.

For more information about this event, contact Barbara Dash: bdas@loc.gov

Lewis Carroll Society of North America – Spotlight on Collectors!

June 11, 2023 , 2:00 pm – 3:00 pm EDT
11AM Pacific/ 2PM Eastern/ 7PM UK

Join the Zoom Webinar on June 11

Join LCSNA members and friends as they go on a virtual tour of some very special Carrollian collections. In addition to exclusive looks at exquisite ephemera, they’ll explore what drives collectors to collect, and how they settle on specialty and scope.

We are very excited to welcome Dr. Catherine Richards, Clare Imholtz and Joel Birenbaum.

Catherine Richards will give an introduction to the important field of Carrollian Deltiology, sharing some of her favourite specimens, and showing how they can lead to some fascinating research.

Joel Birenbaum, serious and not so serious collector of all things Alice, will present Welcome to My Wonderland.

Clare Imholtz will share her Alice-themed yearbook collection!

Meet Your Collectors

Catherine Richards has been collecting and researching Lewis Carroll for over 40 years. The Richards collection is wide-ranging, and one particular focus is upon Carroll-related postcards, which in themselves cover every conceivable topic.

Joel Birenbaum is a member and ex-president of the LCSNA, Creator and Administrator of the Alice in Wonderland Collectors Network and Organizer of Alice150.

Clare Imholtz is a long-time LCSNA member who has been collecting Alice books and ephemera since the 1980s. She discovered Alice-themed yearbooks, many of which include extraordinary student art and writing, on eBay.

Peter Parley Presentation with Jackie Coleburn & Anthony Mullan!

A GLOBE ON A NEW PLAN: PETER PARLEY’S TEACHING OF GEOGRAPHY TO CHILDREN IN 19TH CENTURY AMERICA

Join Philip Lee Phillips Society Members and Friends 
For a Spring Presentation
In Conjunction with the Washington Map Society Annual Dinner

FRIDAY MAY 19, 2023

Thomas Jefferson Building, Room LJ-119
85 First Street, SE | Washington, D.C.  

10:00AM  Coffee Hour
11:00AM  Lecture and Q&A | in-person and virtual
12:00PM  Curated Display of Peter Parley Books

Jackie Coleburn, Library of Congress, Rare Book Cataloger, and Anthony Mullan, Library of Congress Geography and Map Division, Cartographic Specialist (retired), will give a talk on Samuel Griswold’s innovative methods of teaching geography to his young readers as a companion more than as a tutor, telling stories and creating adventures to convey concepts of history and geography. Griswold’s books, under the pseudonym Peter Parley, were immensely popular, selling in multiple editions and millions of copies. The lecture will offer a window into the prevailing opinions and assumptions of pre-Civil War America with Goodrich’s books on geography for children.


Questions? Contact Sara Karrer saka@loc.gov or call 202-707-6150.