The community reading room

The Community Reading Room (CRR) is a pop-up destination for research, community discussion and engagement around art, culture and identity. The CRR is envisioned as a safe-space for individuals who identify as First Nations and people of colour to encounter texts that acknowledge and place their lived experience and practice at the centre, rather than the margin. Founded by Fijian-Australian artist and academic Torika Bolatagici the CRR is a discursive project that invites the general public to consider the inclusivity of public spaces and to contemplate how our institutions of knowledge privilege particular ways of knowing and being. During the three-week installation at Testing Grounds, Bolatagici invited multidisciplinary artists to activate the space and respond to the book collection; including reader-in-residence - artist and composer Stéphanie Kabanyana Kanyandekwe; performance collective Black Birds; African art collective Still Nomads and Indigenous art collective This Mob. The Community Reading Room has been exhibited at Testing Grounds and Arts House in 2017.