View the video of Whispers in the Library

Whispers in the Library was a weekly performance held during August and September 2020. The performance responded to the scholarly and contemplative environment of the UTS Reading Room. The artist  inhabited a designated desk space and made annotations onto sticky notes reflecting on love, fear, sex, friendship, photography and philosophy among other topics. Visitors were invited to take a note that spoke to them, insert it into a Library book, and return it to circulation until it eventually finds its receiver.

This performance sought to create moments of connection and recognition between us. Moments of attentiveness in which a person carefully selects an idea for a stranger. Moments of warmth in which the unbeknownst reader finds a message of love or care hidden in a book. These potential moments will circulate through time and the collection, until forces of fate connect message to receiver - a tangible message, considered and handwritten; an anonymous keepsake, carefully inserted into a knowing book.

It is the artist's creative intention to juxtapose ideas and raise questions against the surface of other people’s work. This is a creative repurposing reflecting the stimulation of things around us. Whispers in the Library respects and acknowledges the authors and creators of those works and their rights in their original works.