Understanding our library collections through the lens of diversity, and stimulating public engagement with this work, is a key part of IALS’ Decolonisation, Social Justice, and EDI strategy. As part of this focus, in 2024, dance artist and scholar Anna Macdonald was invited to join IALS as their first practitioner in residence. The residency led to the creation of a short film called Changes in Light (18m 32s), directed and edited by the artist, which brings attention to the colonial legacies that influence library design and the importance of work being done to address this. Made in collaboration with IALS Librarian Marilyn Clarke, library staff and videographer Marisa Zanotti, Changes in Light explores the impact of the affective qualities of libraries on those who use them as a way of revealing the colonial complexities of law itself.  The film explores staff’s embodied responses to colonial legacies alongside an exploration of movement and light within the building, offering a nuanced perspective on the complexity of structural change within institutions.

Made with research funding from Central Saint Martins: UAL and IALS. 

Anna Macdonald

Anna Macdonald’s is a dance artist/scholar whose practice focuses on the relationship between the body, time and affect. Her work is exhibited in both festival and gallery settings and has generated interdisciplinary findings in the fields of health, science and law, within large-scale projects funded by AHRC, Arts Council England and Wellcome Trust. She is a Reader in Movement at UAL: Central Saint Martins, London and an Associate Research Fellow at IALS.

Website