Through the second half of Michaelmas Term, the College hosted a small exhibition of chapbooks produced over the last 10 years by local artist, William Meadows. Inspired by found objects, personal memories and encounters, this collection of short booklets celebrates the largely unacknowledged work that emerges outside of the art establishment and within the ebb and flow of ordinary life.
William’s work was displayed alongside a number of other chapbooks drawn from the College Library’s archive, including primers on reading and short stories from the early half of the 19th Century. Comparing past and present, the two exhibitions brought attention to these typically ephemeral publications, which, since the earliest days of printing, have served as a short, inexpensive medium for both artistic work and political commentary. Their simplicity has made them easy to produce and affordable to purchase, democratising access to literature and news, whilst providing a vehicle for unrecognised writers, poets and thinkers to reach a public.
At the exhibition’s opening, William described the artist’s work, invoking Martin Buber, as facilitating a ‘meeting’: the perhaps chance encounter by which there is an embodied realisation of a co-presence not otherwise noticed. In meeting, worlds open up and, as one viewer put it, we find ‘how every story is a universe within a universe’. Speaking with a mixed crowd of visitors to the College and Education Faculty students, William’s idiosyncratic rendition of the small format work gave expression to the precariousness and often surreal wonder of that realisation.
When so much experience passes without recognition, this modest collection was an important reminder to give space to the personal labours that nurture wellbeing not only in the individual but in a good and just society. A reminder that art is an ongoing commitment to attend to each other within the everyday detail of life: a surprisingly radical legacy of curiosity and contemplation.
Two of William’s chapbooks are left with the University Library rare books collection. The College is currently in discussion about adding all ten to our own archive. For any queries, please do contact Joel Chalfen (jhc20@cam.ac.uk).
