Mette Edvardsen

What happens in a society where books are forbidden? Edvardsen has been inspired by the 1953 novel Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury, the story of a society where books are prohibited and burnt – books burn at 451 degrees Fahrenheit. In the novel, people learn books by heart so they can pass them on orally. In Mette Edvardsen’s project a whole library of living books have each learnt one book by heart.

Biography

The work of Mette Edvardsen (1970, Norway) is situated within the performing arts, dance and choreography. Although her work explores other media and formats, such as video, books and writing, her interest is always focused on the relationship to the performing arts as a practice and a situation. Based in Brussels since 1996, she has worked as a dancer and performer for a number of companies, and developed her own work since 2002. A retrospective of her work was presented at Black Box theatre in Oslo in 2015. In 2010, she initiated the project Time has fallen asleep in the afternoon sunshine, which refers to a quote from the Ray Bradbury novel Fahrenheit 451 (1953), to develop memorisation as a practice and ongoing process.

Essay

Frøydis Århus is a theater scholar, critic and writer.

In this essay she writes about Time has fallen asleep in the afternoon sunshine – a Library of Living Books as an opportunity to look at the world of literature in a new way.

Read the text here:
NON-MATERIAL LITERATURE