BOOKS FOR BURNING? / / KNYGOS SUDEGINIMUI?
Part of the text from the 'Urban Stories' guide for the X Baltic Triennial of International Art:
Books for burning is a project that started during a residency at the CAC in 2008. Van Braak started working on a project for the X Baltic Triennial that consists of a ‘functional’ sculpture and a series of performance and festive events hat were held between December 2008 and July 2009. The work, draws inspiration from François Truffaut’s film Fahrenheit 451 (1966) and the eponymous novel by Ray Bradbury, which, "takes place in an unspecified future time in a hedonistic anti-intellectual America where critical thought through reading is outlawed". A more direct trigger for the project was the 19th century Lithuanian January - Uprising against the Tsarist occupying force and the consequent ‘ban’ on books in the Lithuanian language. Currently, Vilnius University Library is currently discarding large numbers of publications in Russian because they have become obsolete or unwanted reminders of the previous regime; this provided a direct incentive for this project which touches upon the local history of production and distribution of printed matter. Meanwhile it refers to the universal practice of book burning in suppressing dissenting ideas and the consumerist preference for ‘entertainment’ over ‘knowledge’.