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What is lost when books are silenced?

In development for several years, Inventory of Lost Books has become increasingly timely as book bans and challenges have accelerated across the United States.

This immersive installation places audiences inside the moral and emotional landscape of censorship. Through visual art, sound, video, live performance, and public participation, visitors encounter books as evidence, witnesses, symbols—and absences.

Experienced through intimate, 30-minute timed entries, Inventory of Lost Books invites audiences to become participants, not simply spectators.

The Chicago Experience

Two interconnected immersive environments

At Theatre Y Gallery, visitors move through Inventory of Lost Books’ Chapters 2 and 3 of an evolving four-part project examining the life, suppression, destruction, and preservation of books—and the ideas they carry.

Chapter 2 recreates a regulatory world of towering book stacks, whispered voices, and bureaucratic labor. Books are cataloged, sorted, stamped, and classified as visitors confront the ordinary systems, institutional processes, fear, and social compliance through which censorship can take hold.

Chapter 3 expands into a visceral environment where projected imagery, vibration, sound, and live performance evoke destruction in its many forms. Fire and water, machinery and crowds, institutional action and individual choices converge—not only in the destruction of books, but in the quieter erosion of collective memory and individual rights through neglect, indifference, and silence.

Plan Your Visit

August 6–23, 2026

Thursdays: August 6, 13 & 20
7:00 and 8:00 PM

Saturdays: August 8, 15 & 22
6:00 and 7:00 PM

Sundays: August 9, 16 & 23
4:00 and 5:00 PM

THEATRE Y GALLERY
3609 West Cermak Road
Chicago, Illinois 60623

Free admission. Space is limited. Reservations are recommended.