“If a library can be something as simple as an organized collection of texts, then libraries massively pre-date books in the history of culture. Every country has a tradition of legends, parables, riddles, myths and chants that existed long before they were written down. Warehoused as memories, these texts passed from generation to generation through dance, gesture and word of mouth.”
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STUART KELLS
The Library: A Catalogue of Wonders, 2017

In The Infinite Library’s main cavern visitors can discover cosmic pools that highlight eight different stories about our planet’s evolution, beginning with its origin.

Caves are where we find the first forms of symbolic expression, beginning around 70,000 years ago. They were our first libraries - spaces where our cultures incubated. But as humans mastered agriculture, around 10,000 years ago, our tool making abilities rapidly accelerated. We created cities, invented written languages, mastered navigation, launched an industrial revolution, and sent people and later tens of thousands of satellites into space. In geological time, this all happened in less than a second.

The Infinite Library’s main cavern invites us to return to and reflect upon our species’ beginnings. It also poses the question: what will the next phase of our planet’s evolution look like? By inviting visitors into the first library created around the concept of deep time, The Infinite Library seeks to pose more questions than answers. Symbolized by the ouroboros, the snake that eats its tail, it asks us to reimagine the library not as a thing, or specific form, but as a living idea, and one that must die to be reborn.