ADDICTS DISPLAY LITERARY TASTES

Installation Of Favourite Books Challenges Our Stereotypes

Addicts aren't literate, let alone literary. That's the standard view
in a city that writes off residents of the Downtown Eastside as
nothing more than junkies.

But reading is one of the few pleasures people struggling with drug
addiction can indulge in safely, and a new art project in the
Vancouver Public Library's main branch proves addicts have
sophisticated tastes.

Books as diverse as Leo Tolstoy's War and Peace, E. B. White's
Charlotte's Web, Herman Melville's Moby Dick, Margaret Atwood's Oryx
and Crake and Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot were among favourites
in a survey of the reading tastes of 600 current or former drug users.

The book project, called the Nova Library after a William Burroughs
novel, is the work of New York-Berlin artist Hans Winkler, who calls
it a "social sculpture."

Winkler collaborated with Vancouver's Grunt Gallery and researcher
Chris Livingstone of the Vancouver Area Network of Drug Users.

The collection challenges perceptions of drug addicts as
non-intellectuals by linking average readers to addicts through shared
favourite books. It also serves as an inclusive space for drug users
to read.

"[Winkler] was trying to develop our stereotypes around drug use and
how we view the Downtown Eastside and people who are addicted to
drugs," said Grunt gallery administrator Daina Warren. "I think he
wanted to try to humanize it, in a way."

Not all the selections are highbrow. Many have to do with drug
culture, such as Hunter S. Thompson's Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
and Tom Wolfe's Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, while others are
self-help books, such as Seven Habits of Highly Effective People and
How to Quit Drugs for Good. There are even children's books -- Curious
George and Le Petit Prince -- that are likely cherished for memories
of a simpler time.

The project was funded by a $7,000 grant from the Vancouver Foundation
and supported by Grunt Gallery curator Glenn Alteen, social agencies
like the VANDU, the Portland Hotel Society and the Life Skills Centre,
and the VPL.

Library patrons are invited to read the books on display, but they
cannot be checked out. The installation runs until Nov. 30.