OPEN

OPEN is a multi-component project installed in different areas of the library and is composed of three related artworks: The Explorers, The Chase, and The Guardians. Collectively, the project highlights literature as well as the power, knowledge, and magic that reading endows. Each element of the project is intended to bring classical children’s literature to life. The artist is reminding us that when we open a book, or the door to a library, we are also opening our minds. As a father, Landis is particularly compelled by the relationship of parents and small children as they explore stories together and enter the realm of the imagination.

The Explorers, a suspended sculptural installation, depicts fawns wandering through the pages of books. The Chase, installed along the stairwell contains rabbits bursting from tumbling books and windswept pages before vanishing again into them. In the entrance plaza, The Guardians presents a lion, coming out of the pages of an open book after being released from his binding by a mouse.