From June 12 until July 12, the London-based art collective Ink Illustration will host a new metafictional exhibit, creating book covers and text for books that only exist inside the pages of novels.
Last year imaginary literary scholars Levi Stahl and Ed Park created the Invisible Library, collecting scores of non-existent books that were mentioned in real novels. The collection included imaginary works alluded to in fiction by Jorge Luis Borges, Dorothy L. Sayers, Kurt Vonnegut, and many other authors. The London exhibit draws from 40 of these titles, illustrating the imaginary books.
Here’s more from the participatory exhibition: “Working with some of Real Fits best selling writers and novelists, as well as high profile cultural and musical figures, the opening or closing pages of these forty empty books with illustrated covers, will be penned in advance of the exhibition. The collaboration continues throughout the exhibition as gallery attendees and workshop participants are invited to temporarily ‘sign out’ these library books and carry on writing the developing narratives within. Thus by the close of the exhibition, the once blank pages of each book will be enlivened with imaginative poly-vocal stories.”