Recipient of the Kallman Feitel Endowment and the World Centred Award: The Perimeter Books Award.
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WHISPERING A SECRET INTO A SEALED BAG explores what Édouard Glissant describes as the ‘right to opacity’. The book presents itself, both in form and content, as an undecipherable mystery. A labyrinth of clues centred around a family unit that ultimately leads readers down an indiscernible path. Through interacting with the book, participants are invited into a state of ‘not knowing’. In which there is a premise of a family secret, but no real sense of certainty or closure amidst the speculation. Drawing on family archives, including my own, the project is a simulation of my childhood experience, and that of my siblings. An environment shrouded in secrecy, meant to provoke the feeling that everyone knows something, except for you. By working in this way, I aim to challenge our threshold of acceptance when encountering a situation that isn’t altogether transparent. It allows us the opportunity to accept opacity and unfamiliarity without reducing or dismissing them, to respect a person’s freedom to not be understood on our terms and to release them of those expectations. A process that continues to challenge me every day.
