The Future Library has books no one can read until 2114.
The time capsules are created by putting books and notes belonging to the time into a closed box for a future opening. Some are doing this to leave a message for the future, others to come and have a sense of nostalgia by opening up their own time capsule in the future. Katie Paterson developed the concept he called The Future Library to present literary works to the future and beyond. The Future Library gets one lucky author’s handwritten work into its storage every year since 2014. The reason behind it is that so these works could be printed and read for the first time in 2114 after 100 years. The papers to be used in the making of these books will be produced from the trees growing in Norway today.
A gift to the future
Scottish artist Paterson plans to print 3 thousand copies of each book. But in 2114, we don’t even know if Paterson nor the authors of the works could open and read these books because you know, we live and die. Some of the authors of the books that will be added to the library are not yet even born.
Margaret Atwood became the first author of The Future Library in 2014. Atwood believes that even after 100 years, humans surviving and reading books is pretty optimistic. Atwood thought that at that time people might have difficulty understanding our time, and Atwood asked the following questions:
“Which words we use today will be lost at that time? What new words will be used instead of them in the language of those people? We don’t know what footnotes should be in our books. Will they have computers? Do they even call them computers? What will they think of the smartphones? Will there still be such a word?”
Han Kang said “I will not be alive after 100 years. No one I love will be alive. This caused me to turn to an important point in my real life, who am I writing to? Who am I talking to when I write? Did Jane Austen think of the people who would read her even after a 100 years later? Could she have visualized us in her head?”
The works collected until 2020 will be moved to the Silent Room which is in the shape of a womb in Oslo. This room will be facing towards the forest where the trees are used to print out the books. Visitors will be able to look at the gray boxes with ribbons where books are kept, but not the contents of them because they are not yet to be seen by anyone before 2114.
