How to Build a Library (Edinburgh)

Two women in Nairobi, Shiro and Wachuka, have set out on an ambitious mission: to transform the neglected, historically whites-only McMillan Memorial Library into a vibrant, accessible public space that serves its local community. As the dust is brushed off the library’s archives of colonial Kenya and its stacks of books by majority non-African authors, thorny questions about the project emerge: found in every detail from the embedded bias of the Dewey Classification System, to the quietly troubling sources of funding they rely on to renovate the library. In a world where the call to “decolonise” our institutions has become widespread, How to Build a Library charts both the material and ideological complexities of what this means in practice.

This event will also include a screening of the short film Space to Breathe. Join Take One Action in conversation after the films to discuss the nuances of decolonial processes in Scottish institutions, and how entangled they remain with their colonial pasts.

CONTENT NOTES: Discussion of racism and colonialism; brief archival depictions of death, execution and dead animals.

ACCESS NOTES: Mainly visual storytelling and bright images.

You may also like the following events from Take One Action Film Festivals:

• This Sunday, 21st September, 05:45 am, NIÑXS (Edinburgh) in Edinburgh
• Next Saturday, 27th September, 02:00 pm, Power Station (Glasgow) in Glasgow

Also check out other Entertainment events in Edinburgh, Arts events in Edinburgh, Literary Art events in Edinburgh.