This series of digital prints was developed while Ozolins was in the Australia Council’s Greene Street Studio Residency in New York from April to July, 2013, where she developed ideas for new work about our changing relationship to the book, the word and to libraries. In the beginning represents one of two streams of work created by Ozolins during that time – the other is an installation and documented performance called The Secretary.

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In the beginning consists of 5 large scale images that reflect on the mystery of the emergence of the world from the word. They reference Judeo Christian ideas about creation (In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God); classical architecture which aimed to represent the divine; the use of the grid as a way of ordering information, and the alchemical imagery of early 17th century physician Robert Fludd who illustrated the process of the creation of the world as it emerged from the infinite void when the word was spoken.  The work is not a literal interpretation of modes of engaging with the book and the word, nor is it concerned with ideas about God or Christianity, rather, it aims to evoke the power, mystery and (western) cultural significance of ‘the word’.  

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The artist gratefully acknowledges that the ‘In Principio’ image was based on a section of the ground plan of the Melbourne Public Library by architect Joseph Reed, 1859, held in the State Library of Victoria.