ARTIST AURORA DE ARMENDI’s project was offering bookbinding workshops with colleagues to children, teenager and adults at the Queens (NY) Central Library. This project was conceived to address the recent disappearance of Spanish-Language bookstores that were prominent cultural landmarks in NYC’s Latin American immigrant communities. The first part of this project was having these neighbors put together a BOOK 
that expressed their concerns and ideas about the neighborhood. The second part of her project which the grant award was given is to hand print and bound a poetry chapbook. In many ways Libro Abierto is about memory, belonging, and disappearance. As you invite each poet to reflect upon the disappearance of these Spanish language bookstores, their memory conjures a shared experience that most people can relate to.
