A Story That Won’t Be Silenced

A broad white bonnet frames an empty space where a face might be. Below it, a full-length dress covered in printed text deepens to red at the cuffs and hem. Standing in the window at West Hollywood Library, the figure brings a literary warning into the light.

Banned Books: The Handmaid’s Tale, a new sculpture by Los Angeles-based artist A. Laura Brody, invites visitors to encounter Margaret Atwood’s dystopian story beyond the printed page. Words become part of the figure itself, creating a striking visual connection to a novel about a society that denies women their rights — including the right to read.

Presented by the City of West Hollywood in recognition of Banned Books Week, which takes place annually in late September or early October, Banned Books: The Handmaid’s Tale carries that conversation beyond a single week. Its placement in a library makes the setting part of its meaning: a character associated with repression stands in a place dedicated to books, access, discovery, and the free exchange of ideas.

Atwood’s novel The Handmaid’s Tale imagines Gilead, an authoritarian society in which women are stripped of their rights, including the right to read. Its exploration of power, bodily autonomy, and the suppression of ideas makes the novel’s own history of censorship especially resonant. A story about the consequences of silencing people has, itself, faced efforts to silence it.

Brody’s sculpture invites visitors to consider that connection. Part of a series depicting characters from books that have been banned or challenged in schools and libraries across the United States, the work brings a literary character into an unexpected setting. Encountering the story through sculpture offers another way into the questions it raises: Who controls access to information? Whose voices are heard? What do we lose when someone else decides which stories we may encounter?

Brody, a sculptor, curator, and activist, also founded Opulent Mobility, an exhibition series that reimagines disability as opulent and powerful. Her work creates opportunities to reconsider familiar assumptions — an approach that finds a fitting home in a library, where discovery can begin with an unfamiliar perspective.

West Hollywood Library showcases the City of West Hollywood’s rich intellectual, literary, and cultural communities and provides a landmark gathering place for the community’s passionate commitment to lifelong learning. The installation was accompanied by a Banned Books Week display from LA County Library highlighting challenged and banned titles. Together, the displays encouraged visitors to explore different perspectives and consider the importance of access to ideas.

Banned Books Week has ended, but the invitation to experience Banned Books: The Handmaid’s Tale remains. The installation is on view in the front window of West Hollywood Library, 625 N. San Vicente Boulevard, through late June 2027. The exhibition is free to visit during regular library hours.

The City of West Hollywood’s Arts Division delivers a broad array of arts programs. Learn more at www.weho.org/arts.

City photographer Jon Viscott captured the installation: