In the Structura Gallery project “Bouquinerie”, Alison Darby created a composition made up of several visual components. It embodied her perception of one familiar urban sight: the makeshift stalls for “second-hand” books and cards in the garden in front of the Rila Hotel. What impressed her is the informal use of this public space. Rows of books that form a kind of walls and create a new structure. Postcards and old photographs relating to faraway places, and forming walls of boxes full of stories that gather in this place. Alison transformed these elements into a long strip of ornaments (words). They are her transcription of the soundscape and the stories she has heard. The ornamental notes complement a plaster relief protruding from the wall that expresses her tactile perception.

The project reflects the artist’s concept of the different uses of places, the accumulation of stories and meanings, and how historical and visual layers interact with the environment and people.

exerpt from a text by Maria Vassileva