October 15, 2021
Solange Launches Digital Library of Rare Books and Art By Black Creators
Solange is committed to enlightening and empowering Black people. Her latest media center project does just that.
Solange’s Saint Heron studio and platform announced it is launching a free digital library of “esteemed and valuable” books,” Variety reported. The library is unique in that it offers rare books by Black creators with the purpose to study, research and cultivate.
According to Saint Heron’s website, select titles will be offered seasonally and selected by guest curators. The literary works, which include rare and out-of-print titles, can be borrowed for up to 45 days by anyone in “our U.S.-based community.”
“The library’s focus is education, knowledge production, creative inspiration, and skill development through works by artists, designers, historians, and activists from around the world,” Solange said on the site.
Beginning Monday, October 18, readers get the opportunity to borrow the books. The site says the media center is a part of a larger mission to “build upon its urgent mission to preserve, collect, and uplift the stories, works and archives that amplify vital voices within our communities.”
The library is a partnership with Aesop skin care.
“Aesop has a long-standing commitment to literature and the written word,” said Adam Kakembo, the company’s chief marketing officer. “As much as literature is an inspiration to us, it also is, now more than ever, a responsibility…We hold in high esteem the work of the Saint Heron collective in the urgent preservation of important stories, and when they shared their own Library project it was evident to us we needed to support.”
Aside from her successful, Grammy-winning singing and songwriting career, Solange’s performance art, digital work, and sculpture have been exhibited at the Guggenheim Museum in New York City, the Menil Collection in Houston, the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles, and the Tate Modern in London.