Michael Chew

What are buried words?

Have you ever wanted to share your true feelings with someone, but were too afraid?
Too afraid of hurting them, being hurt, looking a fool, being weak, being ‘unprofessional’, rocking the boat…

Within all of us lie buried the words, thoughts and feelings that have remained unsaid – to loved ones, to authority figures, to ancestors and unborn children.  Sleeping beneath the surface, they lie waiting for a chance to be spoken.

This little project is simple – it gives people a way to get beyond these fears, to express their words.

Inspired by international projects like PostSecret, it works on a simple premise - often what we resist, disavow or deny giving voice to contains a seed of truth for us.  These difficult truths form potent words giving rare glimpses into other people's lives, and invitations to reflect on our own.

How it works
People submit their words anonymously online via a form at the Buried Words website over August-September. They will be collated by the project team and a selection posted up anonymously on the website and Buried Words facebook page. To ground these fleeting words from the ether, an exhibition will be held in the Footscray Library as part of the Melbourne Fringe Festival (25^th Sept – 16^th Oct), and the contributed words will be transcribed onto small, delicate, handcut bookmark cards. These cards will be slipped amongst the thousands of books amongst the library, waiting for people to stumble upon them. As an evolving and interactive project, viewers will be encouraged to submit their own buried words in response. The exhibition opening will be on Thursday September 25, 6-7:30pm at the Footscray Library, 56 Paisley St, Footscray - please come and celebrate the project with us!

What's next?
The exhibition is a first pilot of the project - if it is successful we would love to expand and evolve the project in other locations, forms and media. Stay tuned, and we welcome your ideas and feedback.

Buried Words is proudly part of the 2014 Melbourne Fringe Festival.

Most of the work in the project is people's time - it is very labour intensive to be regularly checking the forms, posting on the blog, replying to contributors, printing the cards, organising exhibition, publicity etc. Luckily the project team is doing this all as a labour of love because they all think its awesome gift to the world.  However they don't have much spare cash themselves for all the little expenses that add up - that's what this crowdfunding campaign is all about.

So here's is an approximate budget breakdown of where your money will go (there may be small changes but that the gist of it):


Any additional funds raised over the total will go towards future exhibitions of the project - we are already talking to a few other libraries and there's lots of intriguing possibilities for the project to grow and evolve... So please donate if you are inspired and would like to see it fly further and touch more people:)

Challenge: Managing all those wonderful contributions! 
Plan: Our project team will be rotating the roles in collecting and curating the contributions.

Challenge: Contributions could potentially cause offense or pain to individuals or groups.
Plan: Contributions are moderated and potentially difficult ones will not be published

Challenge: Project team burnout
Plan: Regular meetings and check-ins, inviting others to assist where possible, and lots of cups of tea.

Challenge: Team members combusting during mini-balloon fabrication and/or launch.
Plan: Fire-proof gorilla costumes will be deployed.