Everyone Welcome
An immersive journey through a library that time forgot. Step into a library that feels strangely familiar—but not quite right. The Lost Library is an immersive, liminal-space experience where forgotten objects, flickering screens, strange messages, and fragments of the past come together to create a library suspended somewhere outside of time.
Explore old maps and photographs. Search the card catalogue for something—or someone—you can't quite remember. Peer into a microfilm reader. Follow the glow of a banker’s lamp through the stacks. Discover messages hidden in unexpected places, and leave your own mark behind.
As you explore, you may begin to wonder: What happened here? Where did everyone go? And why does this library seem to remember you?
Created for Lumen, The Lost Library invites you to linger in the uncanny space between past and present, memory and imagination, familiar and strange. Come in. Look around. Just don't stay too long.
Explore Uptown Waterloo like never before! Lumen is an immersive festival celebrating light, art and technology. Multiple artists and instillations will take over the night on September 19, 2026.
Photography Notice: For larger public events, please note that by attending, you are consenting to the use of your appearance, image, and voice in print or digital productions created by the Waterloo Public Library and other event organizers for promotional use only. Please speak to library staff or organizers at the event if you’d like to be excluded from any photo/video.
Staff: Nancy, Maddy and Claire
AGE GROUP: | Everyone Welcome |
EVENT TYPE: | Special Events | Outdoors | Drop-in | Community Events | Arts |
TAGS: | Culture Days, poetry and short story readings, art shows |
Located in the heart of Uptown Waterloo, the two-storey building features a separate children’s area, ample study space, the Ellis Little Local History Room and WPL’s largest collection of browsable materials.
