PHOTO: Emily Spink
Got a troublesome secret? Let it go.
The concept sounds easy, but one university student’s fine arts project on the nature of secrets took four months to complete.
In the foyer of the Fine Arts block on campus at the University of Canterbury, 40 sheets of hand-cut paper were pinned to the wall, each with a unique quote and background.
Hilary McConnell, 22, was inspired to create her fourth-year fine arts project “Let it go’’ after finding out that someone she knew was struggling with an eating disorder. She wanted to help, but didn’t know what to do.
After seeing the online site Post Secret, which posts people’s anonymous secrets as part of a community art project, she put two and two together.
“I thought I could anonymously help people, and if they had their secrets and saw them all beautiful and a little more public, it might help them to face their issue.”
Each piece took between five and twenty hours and was cut using a scalpel.
“I only cut myself badly once,” said McConnell, laughing.
The remains of four months spent cutting can be seen on her cramped work space in the Fine Arts building. Delicate pieces of paper are scattered across the desk and heaped in a small pile.
Gathering the anonymous secrets was an easy task for McConnell, who placed two perspex boxes on campus across three separate locations for two weeks.
Participants were invited to get a secret off their chest and drop it in the box.
While she got the odd fake secret, like “I killed Mufasa”, the response to the project was overwhelming. More than 100 secrets were received and, of these, 40 were chosen to be made into delicate creations.
Suicide and depression-related secrets dominated.
“I think often people who have depression or are suicidal are looking for secret cries for help, but really don’t want to tell people,” McConnell said.
The artwork comes down this week, but McConnell hopes to turn it into a book.
_Emily Spink for The Mail
