Banned Books and Paper People
BRINGING BANNED BOOKS To Life!
Sample exhibition:
From the solo exhibit at Window Dressing curated by James MacDevitt
Cerritos College Fine Arts Building in Norwalk, CA
A. Laura Brody
BANNED BOOKS AND PAPER PEOPLE
Apr 5 – Apr 18, 2026
A. Laura Brody sculpts for the human body and its vehicles. Having begun her professional career as a costume designer, her work continues to investigate bodies of all forms and capabilities. For her Window Dressing installation BANNED BOOKS AND PAPER PEOPLE, Brody has developed new series of life-sized paper sculptures. These works are reminiscent of those she helped create for a gala event in 2017 celebrating the seventh season of the HBO TV show, Games of Thrones, and which are now on display at the Ulster Museum in Belfast, Northern Ireland. Though paper is not her primary medium, for these costume sculptures she incorporates various paper-based materials including pages from Harry Potter books.
The new series developed for the window display, which is particularly relevant in their presentation at an institution of higher learning built on freedom of inquiry and expression, focuses on characters from books that have recently been banned at numerous school and libraries throughout the United States. As Brody highlights, right now there are determined efforts to ban and censor books and educational materials across this country. Denying real history, eliminating access to differing viewpoints, and banning works that do not fit into a fundamentalist belief system is problematic, causing both immediate harm and damage over time. In the long term, children and young adults across America will not get access to alternative ideas about how the world and its people operate. This project is an opportunity to claim a new narrative by celebrating those banned books and introducing students to their characters in an unexpected way.
Cerritos College Fine Arts Building in Norwalk, CA
A. Laura Brody
BANNED BOOKS AND PAPER PEOPLE
Apr 5 – Apr 18, 2026
A. Laura Brody sculpts for the human body and its vehicles. Having begun her professional career as a costume designer, her work continues to investigate bodies of all forms and capabilities. For her Window Dressing installation BANNED BOOKS AND PAPER PEOPLE, Brody has developed new series of life-sized paper sculptures. These works are reminiscent of those she helped create for a gala event in 2017 celebrating the seventh season of the HBO TV show, Games of Thrones, and which are now on display at the Ulster Museum in Belfast, Northern Ireland. Though paper is not her primary medium, for these costume sculptures she incorporates various paper-based materials including pages from Harry Potter books.
The new series developed for the window display, which is particularly relevant in their presentation at an institution of higher learning built on freedom of inquiry and expression, focuses on characters from books that have recently been banned at numerous school and libraries throughout the United States. As Brody highlights, right now there are determined efforts to ban and censor books and educational materials across this country. Denying real history, eliminating access to differing viewpoints, and banning works that do not fit into a fundamentalist belief system is problematic, causing both immediate harm and damage over time. In the long term, children and young adults across America will not get access to alternative ideas about how the world and its people operate. This project is an opportunity to claim a new narrative by celebrating those banned books and introducing students to their characters in an unexpected way.
exhibit text
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Book Covers
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Opulent Mobility by A. Laura Brody is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License