INFO PROGRAM SPECIAL EDITION
The Borderless Shelf: Re-imagining a Library Space
无边书架：重新想象一个图书馆
Digital Publication
English
Published in 2026
Commissioned by Asymmetry
Concept and Editor: te editionsInterviewees: Sam Kim (Common Imprint), Nikki Lam (Slow Burn Books) and Jiaoyang Li (Accent Sisters)
Commissioned Writer: Sharon X.Liu
Designer: Sixuan Tong
This publication marks both the conclusion of te editions’ threemonth residency as librarians-in-residence at Asymmetry and a continuation of the questions that emerged from it. Titled “The Borderless Shelf: Re-imagining a Library Space,” the residency set out to examine how knowledge moves, accumulates, and transforms across contexts. Rather than treating the library as a fixed physical site, the project asks how a library might function as a flexible, shifting structure—one that adapts to displacement, trans - lation, and uncertainty. In a fragmented world, what can a library located “elsewhere” hold, support, or make possible? A second thread running through the residency focuses on Asian publica - tions. This emphasis reflects both the historically fragile condi - tion of books across many parts of Asia and the mission of Asym - metry. Texts have often been rewritten, censored, or interrupted by political and social upheaval, while books themselves have been lost, destroyed, or deliberately erased. From this perspec - tive, the project asks whether an Asian library situated outside its place of origin might serve as a form of refuge—not only for books as objects, but for the knowledge, memory, and ways of thinking they carry. At the same time, it considers whether such a library can become a site of encounter: a space for gather - ing, exchange, and the formation of an offline community in the present.