Words in Space!
Just imagine. You look up, and read a poem. After you read it, perhaps the world sparkles a little bit more brightly.
STORYBOX is re-thinking the potentials of outdoor media.
Our 'Words in Space' initiative has supported emerging writers through new commissions designed for billboards in public spaces.
During 2020 we've been working with STORY FACTORY to invite selected writers to share their work for exhibition outdoors.
We're exhibiting these works as part of STORYBOX installations during 2020, and looking forward to opportunities to present these in more public spaces in the near future.
Get in touch if you'd like to participate as a cultural or precinct partner.
Creative commissions have been supported by the City of Sydney through its Creative Resilience Fellowship program.
STORYBOX contributor Kim Pham's work, exhibited as an outdoor billboard. Artist impression by ESEM Projects.
Explore more of our 'Words in Space' contributions below.
Presenting new work by participants of Story Factory Workshop.
Produced by ESEM Projects.
principles
feel the rain and smell the grass and bump your head on your favourite bar
and gift someone a hug and remind yourself of your insignificance
in this cosmic world
Bea
Oh sweet child
oh sweet child,
show me your eyes, blue
such green,
your hands, they’re cold
but you have such beauty?
from each journey, a new
breath, turn of cold to coal
fires, start from embers
sand swims
where it settles for diamonds to shine
for the envious eye,
snowflakes,
aren’t they beautiful?
Breanna
Through the darkest clouds I pass
The fire I lead my heart into
Between the two unknown ways
I am brave as I believe
in my heart
I go through the life that hasn’t seen the future
Speak to me my errors!
Teach me like before in every challenge
I am ready to face, I am ready to assert
I am brave
Naikbakht
I see the world in a butterfly’s
wings tripping
over themselves
they don’t fall in love
they fly into it
they understand
that no matter how different
we may seem,
we all laugh in the same language,
cry in the same language
just like the butterfly’s
vibrant eruption;
universal.
Arlea
My grandma stands
in the kitchen. fire crackling, the
roti swallows air, rising over dried mud and kerosene.
She sings old songs of her woes
voice rises and falls, travelling generations
through minds of her children;
mesmerised,
they memorise
pains of a past felt even today,
and pass it on
Maithly
Stories within us
“The droplets of the rain
When put together become a big river
With too many species inside
Breathing,wandering
The tiny fragments within us,
Of our thoughts
When put together become a big story
With vivid imaginations and sometimes,
Reality.”
Maryam
Drip
A deep breath
Holding the ocean together
A subtle sigh
Pushing apart worlds
A crippling shout
Breaking apart chains
A bellowing sob
Quaking souls to the core
A piercing whisper
Separating souls with cavernous ravines
A shredding howl
Disintegrating rhythm and rhyme
A withering puff
trapping life
and
dropping it
Jihad
What if
you took refuge within
my frail form that consisted of
Glass shards and bandaids
Blanketed by thick sheets and cotton balls
Would you feel safe in my arms?
Would you trust me?
No?
So then why
Do you trust that person?
Asha
Pure Mistake
the soft tree / the hard tree
that pulls me apart in pieces
and you got what you want / so just let me enjoy that dark
and light / the heat of the sun and the cold of the ice
wherever I go / you nurture what you want
Faraiba
A 'Words in Space' contribution by Duy Quang Mai for STORYBOX.
Quotation by AC Grayling.
Artist impression and typographic treatment by Michael Killalea.
'Faces in the Street' by Henry Lawson (1888).
Artist impression and typographic treatment by Michael Killalea.
© 2023 Esem Projects
