Volume

Volume (2025) is a book that expands into a bar counter, serving as an interface for dialogue between those on either side. Informed by the codex, its ceramic and plaster contents are housed within its covers. These objects function as text, prompting conversation through sharing and collaborative meaning-making. As Rao invites audience members to read the work with her, this collective activation reflects her experience of reading as a social process, shaped in part by a reading disability and a reliance on others as readers. The work operates as a portable, expandable, immersive, architectural book activated through performance. The bar format draws from Rao’s experience working in hospitality; guided by a menu of objects, interactions unfold between bartender and participant, author and reader. The work was developed during Rao’s residency at the Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts.