On a recent winter day, Sheryl Oring found her childhood library cards and the memories came flooding back. For Oring, the local library was a refuge: a place for kids to feel safer and dream with fewer interruptions. As a fellow library kid and current library worker, I know the power libraries can have on us — but it’s not often that we see those stories unfold before our eyes. 

Beginning January 21, 2025, you’ll have a chance to learn more about Oring's unique creative endeavor that is now more than 20 years in the making.

In the 22 exhibition cases at Parkway Central Library’s First Floor Gallery West, Oring’s public art practice demonstrates the thoughtful use of simple analog technology to manually transcribe the hopes, dreams, and concerns of everyday people. Celebrated as Secretary to the People, Oring has traveled thousands of miles with her typewriter, taking dictation from people like you and me. These interactions — at libraries, parks, and other crossroads of public space, resulted in nearly 5,000 messages to U.S. presidents past, present, and future. 

It’s no accident that typewriters are central to Oring’s work. These analog tools allow us to convert thoughts into text. They are symbols of the bureaucracies that can shape our lives. Typewriters are also closely associated with the work of women, whose labor continues to provide care during times of uncertainty and transition. 

We welcome library users to visit this exhibit, open during the first 100 days of the U.S. presidency, to learn more about Oring’s approach to truth-telling through art. These pieces, and the process of creating them, are about all of us and the sentiments that both divide and connect. 

Secretary to the People's opening reception will be held at Parkway Central Library on Thursday, January 30, 2025, from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. This free, drop-in event will include light refreshments as well as a question-and-answer session with Oring and exhibit curator Suzanna Urminska.

This exhibit runs from January 21 – April 30, 2025 and is available during Parkway Central Library's public hours of operation.

For group visits, including school field trips, please contact Suzanna Urminska, Curator of Exhibitions, at urminskas@freelibrary.org.

Stay tuned for related public programming!

This work has been made possible by grants from the Creative Capital Foundation, Franklin Furnace Fund, New York Foundation for the Arts, North Carolina Arts Council, The Puffin Foundation, and the Charles R. Kettering Foundation, as well as support from the National Coalition Against Censorship and the Free Library of Philadelphia.