In her photo series ‘Expired’, photographer Kerry Mansfield documents the decay and death of old children’s books by photographing ‘discarded’ and ‘withdrawn’ library books.
Her photographs reveal the scribbles, dog-ears, stains and tears that mark the books. However, Mansfield chooses not to focus on the “abuse and loss” suffered by the books.
Instead, it is evidence of “everyone that has touched them, because they were well read, and often well loved”.
Inspired by the many “lost afternoons” of her childhood spent in a library, the photographs celebrates the “swiftly disappearing, unique communal experience offered by library books”.
[via Kerry Mansfield and 22 Words]