“The Half-Asleep Pilgrim Book Launch”
Adam Cruickshank
19 July → 10 Aug 2013

The Half-Asleep Pilgrim began as a work of performance and installation in 2011, programmed as part of West Space’s Today Your Love project series. During this time, a reading library of over 300 items (contributions from 37 artists and friends) was made available to the public. The gallery became a temporary reading and work space; a custom made library-box, desk space and chairs were offered for use. The library also existed as the content pool for a new work, a book which operates as a concentrated aggregation of the entire library and as a vague memorial to that period of time and to the generosity of the various contributors. This is the launch (finally) for that book.

Over 100 pages of collage: in part excerpts from every piece of printed matter of which the library was comprised, as well as snippets of conversation and documentation of the space during the exhibition period. While the library itself only came together for those three weeks, The Half-Asleep Pilgrim book is at once a permanent archive of that temporary collection of printed material and a new work in itself. Funded in part by the City of Melbourne, the hard-cover book is priced as minimally as possible and will be available 6pm – 8pm on July 18 and in the West Space book-shop after the launch.

This project is funded in part by a City of Melbourne Arts Project grant.