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between a book and soft place, installation view, ICA at VCU, 2023. (artwork c nicole killian; photography by David Hale)

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MURRMUR: Misread Unread Read Re-read Misread Unread Re-read

Feb 24, 2023 – Jan 7, 2023

Misread Unread Read Re-read Misread Unread Re-read (MURRMUR) is a ten-month exhibition series expanding how we think about reading, publishing, and distributing art, books, and ideas. A research framework developed in conversation with participating artists and educators, MURRMUR opens up traditional forms of education into collective, self-publishing environments, in which reading becomes a non-linear act.

MURRMUR suggests that an act of reading—which may include misreading, unreading, re-reading, and so on—is always an active experience in which our understanding continually changes. The title may also evoke the muffled utterance of a “murmur,” or maybe even a flock of starlings gathered in a “murmuration” to create communal, swirling patterns in the sky.

Artists invited into MURRMUR look at references and models that unfix and disperse knowledge authorship. We look at the book form and scale up all its components into space, so that the book becomes an experimental learning environment. MURRMUR features a series of prototypes, projects, publications, and presentations by artists, designers, writers, poets, and publishers, including Rafael Domenech, nicole killian, Riley Hooker, and Sam Taylor.

MURRMUR, on view February 24–July 16, 2023 in the ICA Shop + Cafe, presents an installation of research, references, and a materials library designed by Sam Taylor. Taylor’s installation will populate with new content over time, providing insights on MURRMUR and its upcoming iterations. Peruse the materials library online here.

Sam Taylor is a product strategist and designer at Manhattan Hydraulics, as well as, Community Steward at Index. Sam’s practice centers facilitating conversations and holding space on topics that intersect rest, literacy, community care, radical imagination, and food sovereignty. He is a Richmond, VA resident whose past work activates libraries, community centers, public streets, and galleries. Overall, he is invested in weaving the abstract ideas of theory that exist in less accessible academic spaces/texts into an earnest dialogue that brings communities together in tangible ways.

MURRMUR is organized by ICA Assistant Curator of Commerce + Publications, Egbert Vongmalaithong.