Imagine your local public library is inhabited by an unknown race of tiny people. They’ve hidden themselves in the shelves, tucked behind books and magazines, among history and fiction, new and old media. If you’re lucky, you might spy on them—or at least their tiny homes, which are filled with tiny beds, microscopic stools, tiny flowers, and furniture made from found objects, like board game pieces and single-use spice jars.
And these little beings need help. You’ve been chosen as a “residential specialist for tiny beings,” charged with finding new homes for the micro-humans. It seems the librarians (giants, like us, at least to microscopic people) have been moving things around.
The immersive experience works like this: you'll take out a box full of instructions and various items that will take you through the library, sometimes even to hidden, hollowed-out books, allowing you to piece together a story.
Welcome to the Bureau of Nooks and Crannies, a new exploration-focused, game-inspired experience housed inside the Lincoln Heights branch of the Los Angeles Public Library system. It’s just one of many, as the Bureau of Nooks and Crannies will soon be found at libraries in Atwater Village, Baldwin Hills, Chatsworth, Pacoima, and Vernon, with each location hosting a different game-like initiative designed to get visitors to see their local libraries (and the outside world) in a slightly more imaginative way.
If in Lincoln Heights we are asked to lend a hand to fictional, hidden mini-humans, in Atwater Village we are asked to fantasize that we are ghosts, friendly places that treat books as gateways to deep, personal reflections.
As I moved around the Atwater branch pretending to be a spirit, I was instructed to close my eyes and run my fingers along a shelf. Then, I was to open a random book and let my fingers rest on a page. Without looking at the cover, I discovered that I had chosen a passage about finding emotional balance. I wrote it down, knowing I would need it later.
All of the experiences at Bureau of Nooks and Crannies come from the mind of Andy Crocker, a Los Angeles-based artist who specializes in experiential theatrical entertainment, having previously collaborated with companies such as Walt Disney Imagineering and Cedar Fair theme parks. Beginning August 16, guests will be able to pick up a box filled with instructions and ephemera, such as magnifying glasses, and explore a fantastical story.
While the boxes cannot leave the library, the quests, aimed at readers of all ages, can be completed in less than an hour. None of them are difficult; we are simply asked to be creative.
Local artist and theater director Andy Crocker brings his immersive experience to the Atwater Village Library Branch.
Some ask us to seek out books and passages that might inspire us. Others lead us to empty encyclopedias, which house ghostly index cards filled with contemplative prompts that force us to compose the story of our lives in a few sentences. That’s where the passage I jotted down came in handy. For Crocker, each is an individual work of art, and each is meant to put us in a meditative state.
“I love puzzles and games,” says Crocker. “But in this particular case, I was trying to design an experience as art. The world is so stressful. The library makes me feel at peace, curious and in control of my time. I love that it’s a public space where I can also have a private moment. We can be alone together. To me, that’s sacred.”
They are games, mostly. But we are more like mischievous investigators than puzzle solvers, tasked with scouring a library for cloaked narratives, each prompting us to pause, reflect, and pretend. Some branches tackle broad themes, like looking decades into the future or grappling with lost loves. Some moments will delight us, like finding a not-so-hidden illuminated mailbox. Others inspire introspection.
For example, we may be moved to consider what makes a good home, or to imagine how we might perish. In Lincoln Heights, I suggested that a residence hide behind a section on Eastern philosophy, dreaming that pocket-sized humans would find the story rewarding and sensing that the thick book of the I Ching might conceal a fancy mini-pad. In Atwater, my ghost in its mortal form met a melancholy end, dying of a broken heart but finding solace in the wonder of a thousand books.
A look inside one of Andy Crocker's mini dioramas as part of his Bureau of Nooks and Crannies experiences for the Los Angeles Public Library system.
(Alex Choate)
I was out in the world and among friends, but with a quiet, inventive task, especially one with a made-up story, I felt a reassuring sense of community. That's the power of play.
“It’s a guided meditation through play,” Crocker says. “I can’t meditate, but I can find a sense of serenity and presence when I’m in a playful state. It’s a guided meditation through imagination. I really think play is one of the most accessible entry points into presence, and I think presence is important for caring about the world.”
The Nooks and Crannies Office is part of a residency program the library set up in partnership with the nonprofit Los Angeles Library Foundation. Participants receive a $20,000 honorarium. Crocker’s work is guaranteed to last at least through early December, though Todd Lerew, the foundation’s director of special projects, says branches are free to leave the experiences on display longer.
Crocker has also created two audio installations, one dedicated to the downtown Central Library and another that works with all 72 branches. The audio portion is a slow, relaxing, guided walk through the libraries, a meditation that asks us to look and touch rather than breathe deeply. Her projects, Lerew says, are designed to make visitors rediscover a “sense of wonder.”
Fans of the collection will find that Crocker's six installations form one connected world. The Imagined Office is simply devoted to objects (or emotions or creatures) hiding in plain sight, whether it's a small, invisible population, a ghost, or a lost love. The tiny inhabitants of Lincoln Heights, for example, send letters to the tiny residences of the Pacoima branch. Crocker notes that some of them, during playtesting, have gone deeper by analyzing their hidden dioramas.
Los Angeles Times columnist Todd Martens imagines a ghost story for himself at the Atwater Village branch library in Los Angeles.
“It’s really fun and sweet, but people who have played it have asked me if it raises questions about gentrification or who is invisible in the world or how we use our privilege to help others,” Crocker says. “Some people are like, ‘Wow! Tiny stuff!’ Both are 100 percent acceptable.”
The beauty of Crocker’s installations is their open-ended nature, which comes from focusing on prompts rather than puzzles. Her inspiration was twofold: one, watching her young daughter wander through the library with wide eyes and wanting adults to remember that surprise; and two, while creating the experiences, she was reading the work of author and professor Ruha Benjamin, specifically the recent “Imagination: A Manifesto.”
“She talks about how if we can’t imagine a better world, we’re in serious trouble,” says Crocker. “I think it’s important to work the muscles of imagination in a way that’s comforting and energizing. One of the threads that runs through all of my work, whether it’s for thousands of people at a time in a theme park or one person at a time in a library, is to offer assistance to the imagination.”
Crocker's Nooks and Crannies Office is a reminder that help is available for free. All you need is a library card.
