Reading Room

100,000,000 is pleased to present Reading Room, a temporary public library where over two dozen artists and designers have created everything—lighting, seating, decor, and bookends. Reading Room will stock the shelves with books from the artists’ personal collections and with artist made books and zines from Fold, a traveling exhibition from Stop Gap Projects. Reading Room is fully interactive, inviting patrons to browse the publications or join in one of the free book-related programs which include paper making, book making, a book release, and a drawing/music listening hangout.

In our current political climate, libraries and related educational institutions are being defunded and censored, meanwhile the digitization of our lives is incessantly manipulated by tecno-oligarchs increasing their already unfathomable amount of power. Reading Room resists this oppression by valuing the slow intimate experience of reading books. It is also a fun community space to celebrate and skill share.

The artists and designers included in Reading Room are Alison Siegel and Tyler Kimball, Amy Kligman, Babsi Studios, Cooper Siegel, Corey Antis, Daeun Lim, Eleanor Foy, Erin Conyers, Graham Carroll and Andy Ozier, Jackson Daughety, Joey Grimm, Johann Peter Hasenclever, Kylie McConnell, Lilli Powell and Audrey Puckett, Mark Cowardin, Maxwell McInnis, Mikey Yates, Mitch Kirkwood, Nico Yarbrough and Wul Solombrino, Piper Dorsey, Rachel Ferber, Seuil Chung, Steph Becker, Sun Young Park, T Palermo, and Zane Smith.

Fold: a traveling zine library that began at Stop-Gap Projects in Columbia, Missouri, and has since made its way to The Weather Station in Lafayette, Indiana, made a stop at 100,000,000 during this exhibition.

Reading Room also included three free workshops through funding by Arts KC: paper making taught by moll caffey, book binding taught by Corey Antis, and zine making taught by Adams Puryear.