For Healthy Teen Network’s 2022 national conference, a few colleagues and I conceived, designed, and built an installation that invited attendees to “string together” a passage from phrases pulled from the year’s most frequently banned books. Fluorescent thread, ambient sound, and a black-light-darkened space transformed book-ban data into a quiet, tactile experience for reflection and discovery. Over three days, the web of string grew denser as more attendees added their own passages, turning individual choices into a collective visual record. At the end, attendees used a library card to decode their passage and reveal which banned books their chosen phrases came from.
