Kerry Mansfield photographs expired library books that “have traveled through many hands, and across county lines until they have reached their final resting place” as a discard and withdrawn from circulation.

Mansfield’s series, Expired, is featured in the Griffin Gallery at the Griffin Museum January 8 through March 1, 2015. An opening reception with the artists takes place on January 10, 7-8:30 p.m. Magdalena Solé has a gallery talk and tour of Mississippi Delta at 4:00 PM. Brandon Thibodeaux has a gallery talk and tour of When Morning Comes at 5 PM. Bryan David Griffith has a members’ talk on his exhibition The Last Bookstores at 6:15 PM. The talks are FREE.

“The first rite of passage upon learning how to write one’s name was to inscribe it on a library check-out card promising the book’s safe journey and return,” says Mansfield. “I remember reading the list of names that had come before me and cradling the feeling that I was a part of this book’s history and it’s shared, communal experience,” she says.
“[The books in Expired] show the evidence of everyone that has touched them, because they were well read, and often well loved,” says Mansfield. “They were not left on shelves, untouched. Now they have a new life, as portraits of the unique shared experience found only in a library book,” she says.

Kerry Mansfield lives in San Francisco, CA. She graduated from UC Berkeley with a degree in photography. She also studied architecture at California College of the Arts. Mansfield has had exhibitions throughout the United States, Europe, and South America. Her work has garnered several national and international awards including the Lens Culture Single Image Award, First Place IPA in the Fine Art Professional Self-Portrait Category, the Worldwide Photography Gala First Place Storyteller Award and a spot on the Shortlist in the Professional Documentary Portrait category for the 2012 World Photography Organization (WPO) Awards. “Expired “was featured on the New York Times Lens Blog in 2013. The Filter Photo Festival in Chicago awarded this exhibition, at the Griffin Museum.