How many hands does it take to bring a book into existence? The Journey of a Book was designed to let visitors of all ages experience that process firsthand. Presented as the main experiential exhibition of the 1st Rami Children and Arts Biennial at Rami Library, it traces the rarely seen path from a writer’s desk to a reader’s hands -across five distinct stations.

The exhibition is built around a single idea: the visitor is not a passive observer but an active participant. Each station plays its own role. In the Writer’s Room, a first sentence emerges from sensory prompts. At the Editor’s Desk, the text takes shape through revision. In the Art Workshop, decisions about visual identity are made. The Print Room brings color, ink, and paper together. And in the Reader’s World, meaning is constructed -and reconstructed- again and again. There’s nothing to passively receive here.

At Usturlab, we shaped the entire project from the first spark of an idea to the final bolt of installation. The conceptual framework, spatial design, software, custom-built mechanisms, and content layers all emerged from Usturlab’s curatorial vision. The exhibition opened under the auspices of the Republic of Türkiye’s Ministry of Family and Social Services, at a ceremony graced by First Lady Emine Erdoğan. The Ministers of Culture and Tourism and Family and Social Services were also present at the opening.

The Journey of a Book captures Usturlab’s approach to interactive experience design: not explaining a subject, but making it felt -not transferring knowledge, but creating the conditions for discovery. It asks visitors to reflect not just on books, but on what it means to create, revise, design, and read. For anyone who loves reading, it gives back the invisible labor behind that love.