Where We’re From 2 (2012-2014)

Expanding upon a gallery installation version of this work from 2010, Where We’re From 2 continued to explore the heightened experience of the teenager, the notion of secret keeping and its connection to suppression and mental illness, and the potential for healing within singing or other voice work. 

After workshopping this subject matter with a group of teenagers over a series of weeks, performances of the group simultaneously singing their secrets to the tunes of various pop songs were recorded and then arranged into a looping, incomprehensible composition. In this way, the secrets were released without being told, allowing for a noisy form of group catharsis.

The work was installed and played, blasting the incoherent sung secrets of teenagers, into a busy public thoroughfare. Flowers and placards designed by the teenagers, were set up along the walkway, memorialising the release of each individual secret and celebrating their collective unburdening. 

The composition was later reworked and exhibited as a headphone piece for the ‘Now Hear This’ section of the ‘Melbourne Now’ exhibition at the National Gallery of Victoria running through 2013-2014.