Reversing Vandalism
4:10
Reversing Vandalism chronicles the library's search for the book vandal, and the librarians' decision to offer the damaged books to artists as materials for creative expression and community healing. Learn more and get involved: http://www.niot.org
Tags: art community response vandalism san francisco public library librarians damaged books book art not in our town reversing vandalism
Added: 5 years ago
From: TheWorkingGroup
Views: 575
["San Francisco, California. For months the main branch of the public library has been repeatedly vandalized." appears on screen, then cut to a male librarian ("Jim Van Buskirk, Librarian") speaking directly to the camera]
JIM: It seemed like this was a very angry person with a very sharp object.
[cut to a female librarian ("Nancy Silverod, Librarian") speaking directly to the camera]
NANCY: His face is always gonna be in my mind ...
[cut to a female police officer ("Milanda Moore, Police Inspector") speaking directly to the camera]
MILANDA: When you start to see that type of hostility, you have to check it.
[cut to the male librarian walking through the stacks of the San Francisco Public Library]
JIM: [in voice over] At first, it was one or two, and then it was two or three more. These were books about gay and lesbian issues, about womens' health, about HIV and AIDs.
[cut to some shots of the mutilated books]
JIM: [in voice over] And these were not neatly sliced pages. These were deep cuts in the body of a text block of a book. Strange almond shaped or eye shapes cut out of words or body parts. Lots of them were books for teenagers.
[cut to another shot of the male librarian walking through the stacks]
JIM: We were terrified, and no one said anything ...
[cut back to the male librarian speaking directly to the camera]
JIM: But to me, it seemed like not a gigantic leap between carving up books and carving up people.
[cut to a shot of several police officers walking through the library]
NANCY: [in voice over] We were really just clueless and very frustrated.
["One Sunday, librarian Nancy Silverod decided to come in on her day off" appears on screen, then cut to the female librarian speaking directly to the camera]
NANCY: I had a couple of hours on a Sunday afternoon, and so I came in and I sat and I pretended to read a book.
[cut to a shot of the librarian sitting in the library reading a book]
[cut to a closeup of the librarian's eyes (as she looks around suspiciously), then back to the male librarian speaking directly to the camera]
JIM: And sure enough, she spotted this guy slipping a pink ... bright pink book under the shelves.
[cut to the female librarian speaking directly to the camera]
NANCY: But the book really sort of clashed with his very sort of quiet ... uh, appearance and demeanor.
[cut to a shot of the library floor, as the shadow of a man looms into view]
NANCY: [in voice over] And I watched, and sure enough, he went over to the same area and hid the book.
[cut to a San Francisco Police mugshot of a man, as "John Perkyns was convicted of felony vandalism with a hate crime enhancement" appears on screen]
[cut to another shot of mutilated books, as "By the time of the arrest, over 600 books had been destroyed" appears on screen]
MILANDA: [in voice over] You come to the main library, and all you do is focus on gay and lesbian books, it's clear as a bell. It's a hate crime.
[cut to the police officer speaking directly to the camera]
MILANDA: It would be the same as if somebody came to the public library and just vandalized books on being Jewish.
[cut to an interior shot of the library, as "After the arrest, the library faced the issue of what to do with the vandalized books" appears on screen]
[cut to the male librarian speaking directly to the camera]
JIM: So the books were returned from the police, and we were faced with all of these boxes full of six hundred books. They had already been withdrawn from the collection, and the next thing was to throw them away ... and we just couldn't do it.
[cut to the male librarian and some volunteers looking over the piles of mutilated books]
JIM: [in voice over] We had to do one more thing.
[cut back to the male librarian speaking directly to the camera]
JIM: What the plan was is to offer these destroyed books to visual artists and let them do whatever they wanted with them.
[cut to another shot of the volunteers sorting the books]
JIM: [in voice over] So we had people calling, emailing, sending back the forms from ...
[cut back to the male librarian speaking directly to the camera]
JIM: New York, from Florida, from Portland Oregon, from France, from Japan. Everywhere.
[cut to various shots of the "Reversing Vandalism" display in the library, as "The library decide to display the transformed books in an exhibit called 'Reversing Vandalism'" appears on screen]
JIM: [in voice over] We had artwork in every format possible. Sculpture, painting, absolutely every conceivable ... we had a working clock! Unimaginable responses to an ordinary book.
[cut to a female artist ("Thea Hillman") speaking directly to the camera]
THEA: I got a book by Leslie Feinberg, who is an amazing transgender activist.
[cut to a shot of her display piece]
THEA: [in voice over] The thing that grabbed my eye was this line "The terms they used to describe us cut and sear" ... and that very sentence had been cut.
[cut back to the artist speaking directly to the camera]
THEA: And there was the ... the art, right there.
[cut to a wooden display piece, with pieces of paper draped on tiny "hangers"]
LYALL: [in voice over] I made a little closet using the title of the book, which was "Outing Yourself."
[cut to another female artist ("Lyall Harris") speaking directly to the camera]
LYALL: To say something hopeful, um, in all of this mix of ... despair and, sort of, tragedy around these books.
[cut to more shots of the "Reversing Vandalism" display]
JIM: [in voice over] We could've been victims, but I think what it did was united the community. This was about everybody saying ...
[cut back to the male librarian speaking directly to the camera]
JIM: "This is wrong. We are not going to accept this, not in our community."
[cut to more shots of the "Reversing Vandalism" display]
JIM: [in voice over] The safety is in numbers. The solution is in the community involvement.
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From niot.org:
60 minutes
"Not In Our Town Northern California: When Hate Happens Here" takes a regional look at five Northern California communities dealing with deadly hate violence over a five-year period. Together, the stories reveal that whether the motivation is racism, anti-Semitism, or crimes motivated by gender or sexual orientation, hate is the same. But Californians are finding innovative ways to respond when hate happens here.
A co-production with KQED-TV.
This program includes the "Staging a Response to Hate," "Summer of Hate/Season of Healing," "Reversing Vandalism" and "Welcome Signs" stories.
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From sfpl.org:
In early 2001, San Francisco Public Library staff began finding vandalized books shoved under shelves, hidden throughout the Main Library. Ultimately over 600 torn and sliced books, on gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender topics, women's issues and HIV/AIDS, were deemed beyond repair and withdrawn from the Library's collection. Rather than discard the damaged books, the Library distributed them to interested community members in the hope of creating art. The wide variety of artistic responses to this hate crime resulted in "Reversing Vandalism," an exhibition of over 200 original works of art, displayed in the Main Library from January 31 through May 2, 2004.
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