The Connecting Hearts Project

The Connecting Hearts Project spanned four years, involving over 6000 people in Sydney, Canberra, London and Adelaide. At more than 80 workshops people from diverse backgrounds shaped around 4000 small terracotta human hearts. They talked as they made, discussing issues of belonging, people seeking asylum and how we are interconnected across identity boundaries and physical borders. Many inscribed their hearts with messages. The hearts were then bisque fired.

Installations

  • Adelaide Installation

  • NAS Installation 2017

  • Emerge Festical Installation

  • Adelaide Installation

  • Circular Quay Installation

  • Message Panel Adelaide

  • Circular Quay Installation

  • London Instlalation

  • London Installation

Installations of the hearts occurred from June 2016 in art galleries and public spaces. Audience members were invited to pick up a heart shrouded in a small piece of muslin, unwrap it, place the heart back on the ground and use the muslin to write their own responses to the issues of connection and belonging. A selection of the muslin messages was sewn into panels which at later installations were hung or formed a tent to shelter hearts.

At three large public installations, hearts were laid out in double walking spirals, so that participants walked through thousands of hearts before choosing one to pick up and unwrap:

Opening Hearts – Circular Quay (Sydney), Human Rights Day 2016
Moving Hearts – Migration Museum (London), 24 & 25 March 2018
Connecting Hearts – Adelaide Botanic Gardens, 13 & 14 March 2019

Workshops

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The project ended up enlisting around 80 regular volunteers who helped to wrap and pack the hearts, place them for installation and then repack them at the end of the day. Without their assistance the project would not have been able to exist. Connecting Hearts also received financial and resource support from many individuals as well as institutions including:

• STTARS (Survivors of Torture and Trauma Assistance and Rehabilitation Service) 2016
• National Art School, Sydney 2016–2017
• Sydney City Council Arts grant, 2017
• King’s College London, 2018
• UK Migration Museum Workshop, 2018
• Claytime, London, 2018
• Plus Alliance (King’s College London, Arizona State University and UNSW), 2018
• Willoughby Council Emerge Festival, 2018
• Adelaide Migration Museum, 2019
• Adelaide Botanic Gardens, 2019

Hearts and Messages

Manus and Nauru Messages
In 2016, two staff working in detention centres on Manus Island and on Nauru gave 20 blank muslin cloth pieces to refugees, inviting them to send a message back to Australia as part of the project. These were printed on small leaflets and distributed at installations – the Manus ones had written messages, the ones from Nauru were pictures from children.

List of installations
Open Hearts, Chippendale New World Art Prize 2016
Heart Awakening, National Art School Open Day, September 2016
Seeking Refuge, Tuggeranong Art Centre ACT, October 2016
Opening Hearts, Circular Quay, December 2016
Opening Hearts, Masonic Centre, May 2017
Moving Nations, Collab Gallery, June 2017
Connecting Hearts, National Art School Postgraduate Show, October 2017
Moving Hearts, UK Migration Museum Workshop, March 2018
Stairway to the Heart, Emerge Festival Chatswood, October 2018
Connecting Hearts, Adelaide Botanic Gardens, April 2019
Connecting Hearts, Adelaide Migration Museum, December 2019 to June 2020

Beached.

A woman walks on a deserted beach, stooping to pick up objects before sitting in a chair facing the sea. She begins the process of repairing hearts. On the other side of the screen, a journey at sea brings the viewer into land - the beach with the woman sitting sewing.

Moving Hearts.

This silent video uses stills and moving footage to provide an overview of the Moving Hearts Project in London. It includes stills from workshops held to make hearts.

Field

The viewer’s gaze sweeps over black and white earth. Clay objects shaped as hearts are lying at all angles in bare earth, some covered and barely visible. The earth scatters over the hearts as if a helicopter is coming into land, the sound of gunfire is heard. Gradually the camera moves closer into the hearts as the sound of war increases.

Half way through the video, the screen goes dark and the faint sound of birds can be heard. The screen shifts to gradually show the same hearts, now in faint colour as the camera closes in on specific hearts. The sounds of life continue as the colour increases and the camera comes to rest on a few hearts with inscriptions: “Out of sight, out of Mind”. A heartbeat becomes louder as the camera comes to rest on a heart “Bring my father from Manus”.

Confined Hearts.

The video documents, through moving footage and still photography, the setting up of the event, participants walking the spiral and writing responses to the last moment when the faint traces are left on the space from those who walked the spiral.

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