LONDON.- A vast labyrinth of 250,000 books, entitled aMAZEme, has been installed on The Clore Ballroom in the Royal Festival Hall between 31 July – 25 August, as part of Southbank Centre’s Festival of the World with MasterCard.

The project has been created by Brazilian artists Marcos Saboya and Gualter Pupo, in collaboration with production company Hungry Man. Inspired by the writer and educator JL Borges, the maze will form the shape of Borges’ unique fingerprint, covering over 500 square metres, with sections standing up to 2.5 metres high.

Visitors are able to navigate the maze, which has been constructed from 250,000 remaindered, second hand and new books. 150,000 of these books have been loaned by Oxfam, which will be returned to the charity’s shop network at the end of the project. The remaining 100,000 books have been gifted by publishing houses from around the UK. Projections of literary quotes directly onto the labyrinth walls and the accompanying audio will immerse the audience in a world of literature.

Presented for the first time outside of Brazil, aMAZEme has been built in situ from 26 July and visitors can watch it grow over the course of the week. When the maze is deconstructed at the end of the exhibition, all of the books will be donated to Oxfam.

aMAZEme is part of the London 2012 Festival, the spectacular 12-week nationwide celebration running from 21 June until 9 September, bringing together leading artists across the world with the very best from the UK.