Soft Sanctuary Season

Soft Sanctuary Introduction, by Bella Milroy

Soft Sanctuary began with a simple premise offered to me by Maria Brewster of At the Library/Rule of Threes back in 2019, when I was asked to create a day in the library based on the idea of “people having a nice time”. What a concept! As an artist, this felt like such a rare opportunity to get to explore ideas of pleasure, leisure, rest and care in ways that feel wondrously expansive and yet beautifully simple. The idea of holding this event at Bootle Library added a whole new dimension of excitement to the project. The nature of these  essential, social and democratic spaces instantly offers a more accessible format of engagement for the people that use it every day, and there is something really fascinating about the sense of safety that the library offers. A core part of my own creative practice as a disabled artist is continually inspired by concepts of public and private spaces, and where the sick and/or disabled body exists within them. What motivated me to consider what to include as part of this “nice day” for library goers and creatives alike, was to take advantage of the safety found within the public nature of the library. I wanted to explore some of the practices used to create a similar sense of safety and security within personal and domestic spaces; methods which are often used as a way to combat the stresses, strains, hardships and pains of everyday life. My ambition was to take these small and often private moments of magic, and hold them tenderly within the safe, publicness of the library. I wanted to give it a table, a collection of hands to chop and mouths to feed, where people gather and think on the space between them and the bodies that exist there. I wanted to make room for these practices to be celebrated.