Reading the Migration Library (RML) is a long-running artist project that produced events and publications about migration and displacement during the years 2016 and 2025. RML publications have been produced in collaborations with over 30 artists and writers. Vancouver-based artist and writer Lois Klassen initiated the project in 2016.
RML publications are available in small quantities at artist book fairs, exchange events, and by emailing lightfactorypublications@gmail.com.
An edition of full boxed sets are available for purchase by archives and collectors, and are described here.
RML1 Communities and Connections was produced in the years 2016 to 2018 (with an additional title in 2023). It was produced as an artist project in partnership with organizations in New Westminster (BC), Santa Fe (NM), Vancouver (BC) and Kingston, (ON). RML1 publications included simple folded pamphlets made in community workshops as well as elaborate chapbooks using innovative binding and printing by writers from SFU’s The Writing Studio.
- Deanne Achong (2017), Workin’ for the Yankee Dollar (ISBN 978-1-988895-08-6)
- Frederick Cummings (2017), My Nomadic Family (ISBN 978-1-988895-06-2)
- Margaret Dragu 2017), Tweed Curtain Passport / Visa (ISBN 978-1-988895-11-6)
- Francisco-Fernando Granados (2017), Waves (ISBN 978-1-988895-02-4)
- Lois Klassen (2016), Migration, Law & the Image (ISBN 978-1-988895-15-4)
- Lois Klassen (2017), Reading the Migration Map (ISBN 978-1-988895-16-1)
- Sarah Klassen (2017), Train Country Emigrant (ISBN 978-1-988895-01-7)
- Misti Ko (2017), The Migration Pattern of a Single Human (ISBN 978-1-988895-05-5)
- Christine Leviczky Riek (2017), Inventory for a Voyage [Da capo sin’ al Fine] (ISBN 978-0-9781082-9-8)
- Franci Louann (2017), Charlie Henry Workman (1897-1976) ~The Unspoken (ISBN 978-0-9781082-8-1)
- Ginger Mason (2023), Henry Frederick Terry (1907-1980) ~ I Remember (ISBN 978-1-988895-30-7)
- Graham McGarva (2017), A Long Story, this… (ISBN 978-1-988895-07-9)
- Karen Ngan, Peggy Ngan, Lois Klassen (2017), Flow (ISBN 978-1-988895-09-3)
- Kattia Samayoa (2017), Paisanos (ISBN 978-1-988895-03-1)
- Natasha Sanders-Kay (2017), Postmodern Mutt: A Profile (ISBN 978-1-988895-10-9)
- Lib Spry (2018), We are all living history (ISBN 978-1-988895-18-5)
- Jasmine Valandi (2017), zarf (containers) (ISBN 978-1-988895-12-3)
- Elisa Yon (2017), When Food Tells Stories: A Tale in 12 Courses, with contributions from Oana Capota, Frederick Cummings, Margaret Dragu, Alan Hill, Sandeep Johal, Kaitlin Kazmierowski, Lois Klassen, Jackline Omondi, and Lilia Yon (ISBN 978-1-988895-00-0)
- Elisa Yon (2017), Repetition and Texture and Pattern in National Geographic (ISBN 978-1-988895-04-8)
RML2 Poetics and Actions was produced during the COVID19 pandemic (2020-2021) and carried a unifying design by Vancouver-based book designer Victoria Lum. A group of commissioned artists and writers produced artist books in partnership with Library of Africa and the African Diaspora (Accra, Ghana) and with funding from the BC Arts Council and Canada Council for the Arts.
- Gabriel Awuah Mainoo (2021), We Are Moulting Birds, in the bound 3-book set labeled Ghanaian Writing on Migration and Diaspora (ISBN 978-1-988895-27-7)
- Madame Beespeaker and Lori Weidenhammer (2021), Feeding the Migration (Painted Lady) (ISBN 978-1-988895-24-6)
- Carlos Colín (2020), Tierra y Libertad / Little México (booklet and cover- ISBN 978-1-988895-22-2; folded poster- ISBN 978-1-988895-21-5)
- Crista Dahl (2020), The Migrators, with contributions from Jairo Salazar and Lois Klassen (The Migrators book- ISBN 978-1-988895-20-8; Life Rhythm poster- ISBN 978-1-988895-23-9)
- Gabriela Galíndez (2021), Notas sobre un recorrido: el Centro de Procesamiento de El Paso / Notes on a Tour: the El Paso Processing Center (ISBN 978-1-988895-25-3)
- A.B. Godfreed & Saan (2021), On Loss: Two Poems from Ghana, in the bound 3-book set labeled Ghanaian Writing on Migration and Diaspora (ISBN 978-1-988895-26-0)
- Jay Kophy (2021), Walking on Water, in the bound 3-book set labeled Ghanaian
- Writing on Migration and Diaspora (ISBN 978-1-988895-28-4)
RML3 Undercurrents and Folds was hosted collaboratively by Lois Klassen (Vancouver) and Deanne Achong (Newfoundland) in 2024. From either side of Turtle Island, Klassen and Achong assembled a group of artists who offer creative responses to topics of displacement, diaspora, arrivals and failed arrivals, travel over sovereign Indigenous territory, and the violence of forcible containment caused by colonizing states. The series was supported by BC Arts Council (Individual Arts Award); Canada Council for the Arts (Research Creation, Explore and Create grant); SSHRC Postdoctoral Fellowship at Critical Media Art Studio, School of Interactive Art and Technology, SFU; Centre for Inter-Media Arts and Decolonial Expression (CiMADE), NSCAD; SITE/ation Studio, UBCO; and, Light Factory Publications.
- Clare Yow (2024), ac·cu·mu·la·tions (ISBN 978-1-988895-32-1)
- Sarah Shamash (2024), Didactics to Postpone the End of the World (ISBN 978-1-988895-37-6)
- Tania Willard and Leah Decter (2024), Directions to BUSH Gallery (ISBN 978-1-988895-35-2)
- Candie Tanaka (2024), Hanafuda 花札 (Flower Cards) (ISBN 978-1-988895-36-9)
- Deanne Achong (2024), Mama D’Lo and Missy G Under the Sea (ISBN 978-1-988895-33-8)
Peter Morin and Leah Decter (2024), x: the meeting place makes the spine (ISBN 978-1-988895-34-5)
