The Scottish artist Katie Paterson has raised more than £5,000 for a domestic abuse charity by making available 1,000 digital copies of her book A Place that Exists Only in Moonlight. Each book is individually signed and numbered (copies are still available). Paterson has asked for a minimum donation of £5; all proceeds go towards Scottish Women’s Aid because “coronavirus (Covid-19) is fuelling domestic violence”, according to a report in the Guardian, which Paterson cites on her online fundraising page.
“The coronavirus for so many women and children means being trapped at home with an abuser,” Paterson writes on Instagram. Scottish Women’s Aid was founded in 1976, and works with police, politicians and other relevant agencies.
The front cover of Katie Paterson's A place that exists only in moonlight. Published Kerber Verlag (2019) Image courtesy the artist and Ingleby, Edinburgh
Paterson’s book includes more than 100 short texts based on the universe “or an expanded sense of earthly and geological time”. She adds: “In the current moment, when so many of us face stressful days of isolation, mental readjustment and possibly illness, I very much hope that these short lines might offer some relief.” One contributor who has bought the book says: “The way it spans the universe is so freeing during this time of sequestering. It is a beautifully expansive creation.”
For her Future Library project, Paterson planted 1,000 trees in the Nordmarka forest outside Oslo to supply paper for a special anthology of books to be printed in 100 years’ time. A film documenting the initiative, Future Library: a Century Unfolds, was included in an exhibition at the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art in Edinburgh, which closed early due to the coronavirus outbreak (the show, the final exhibition in the Now series, was scheduled to run until 25 May). The Future Library film can now be accessed online via Vimeo.