ASMR at the museum | Handling a puppet book | V&A

// Listen with headphones for best experience //

Join curator Assistant Curator Catriona Gourlay inside the National Art Library as she handles and prepares the artist's book 'Anansi Company' for photography. The book consists of 13 delicate handmade wire and card rod-puppets which are based on the tales of Anansi, which spread from West Africa into Caribbean folklore as stories shared orally by enslaved people.

Sound designer and performance-maker Julie Rose Bower has documented Catriona's delicate examination process using ambisonic sound, letting us get closer to the object than ever before.

Watch as Catriona gently slides the puppets out of their paper slots, and shows us how they can be manoeuvred, wearing gloves to avoid getting fingerprints on the metal.

Steps:
What is an artist's book?: 00:52
How the book is structured – loose leaves: 01:20
Photographing books: 02:05
Marking openings with acid free paper: 02:34
Writing on the paper slip: 03:33
Using the museum catalogue: 03:59
Handling and manoeuvring the Tiger puppet: 04:36
Should you use gloves to handle books? 05:01
Putting on nitrile gloves: 05:35
Removing the Chicken-Hawk puppet from the paper slot: 06:07
Manoeuvring the puppet: 07:11

Read more about the object on our website: https://www.vam.ac.uk/articles/handli...

Find out more about the National Art Library: https://www.vam.ac.uk/info/national-a...