LSU Art & Design student Alex Jacobs is taking a unique approach to make banned literature accessible through functional art pieces.
Jacobs, a graduate student in sculpture, started the Free Pages Project, a nonprofit initiative aimed to combat book bans through functional art pieces that will serve as bookshelves. A podcast on lost history and cultures inspired their idea. The episode specifically discussed the topic of Magnus Hirschfeld, a queer German physician and sexologist, whose library was burned down by Nazis.
“We know about events such as the burning of the Library of Alexandria that caused entire cultures to be completely lost,” Jacobs said. “The current cultural war has similar undertones, so I decided to explore that by making books that are being targeted available through sharing a private collection.”
Jacobs has amassed a collection of over 500 banned books for this project and plans to collect even more. From novels by science-fiction writer Stephen King to “Hair Love” by Matthew A. Cherry, a children’s book that aims to foster appreciation of natural hair texture for Black children, Jacobs’ banned book pile is filled with a variety of genres. Of the hundreds already collected, it only makes up for 5% of the banned list by PEN America, Jacobs said.
“Common themes of the books in this collection are uncomfortable truths, history we don’t want to remember or think about and identities that don’t align with heteronormative social constructs,” they said.
Jacobs’ artwork has been themed around discussing gender-identity and representation since they were in undergrad; however, their art has taken new forms throughout graduate school, with secular spaces and rituals being a central topic.
“I’m looking at putting these bookshelves in privately owned spaces, such as at the front of businesses or someone’s lawn if they’re open to it,” Jacobs said. “From that standpoint, it’s not public entities promoting these books but rather private owners sharing them at their own free will.”
The Free Pages Project arrives at a crucial time in American sociopolitics, Jacobs said. With the country recently being added to the CIVICUS Monitor Watchlist due to declining civil liberties, Jacobs believes blatant threats to freedom can no longer be ignored. Jacobs wants viewers of their project to see the deeper meaning behind making banned books accessible to the public.
“This is an attack, and my project is a peaceful protest of this attack,” Jacobs said. “My hope is that people who come across my project take away that these narratives and stories are important and are not going to go anywhere. The more you try to suppress people’s voices, the more they will resist. The more you ban books, the more people will read them.”
