This thesis suggests a template for the artist-in-community as described by African American novelist Toni Morrison; presents an approach to space/place in light of both white Canadian theorist Marshall McLuhan's assertions about the effects of media on human experience and African American social theorist Patricia Hill Collin's description of safe-spaces as used by Black women in the United States; places my work in conversation with the work of established contemporary artists whose claimed identities, similar to my own, place them at the margins of American society to, as Latino artist Félix González Torres said, "(open) up the terms of the argument, and (re-address) the issue of quality and who dictates and defines 'quality'"; and posits that, given their missions, relationships with their communities, and my personal experiences with them, libraries and library-like spaces are metaphors and appropriate places for my work to enter into the community-based conversations that drive my practice.
