Studies of activity & idleness

Lucy Fahey is a visual artist working in drawing and animation. Her work has been acquired in private and public collections in Australia. Lucy was also a Creative Fellow at the Library in 2011.

For my Creative Fellowship I received funding and a room off the dome. I spent every day at the Library for three months, documenting people and life on the forecourt of the Library. This evolved into a collection of hand-drawn animations – intimate studies of activity and idleness, coexisting. The reality of being an artist is juggling part-time paid work with your practice, and it can feel like you are perpetually catching up to where you were a few days ago.

The fellowship gave me the opportunity to focus solely on my creative project,

and I was able to develop ideas and refine things in a way I just wouldn’t have been able to do otherwise. The Library contributed in a significant way to my creative work; my time there was very fruitful.

During my fellowship I spent a lot of time in the dome. It’s one of those architectural spaces that create a sense of awe in the same way nature does – you are dwarfed by your surrounds and aware of your own insignificance. It’s rare to have this experience in a city, let alone in a secular space. I feel like the dome’s vast interior space allows an internal mental space to open up. It’s the most peaceful room in the Library. In the other rooms there’s sometimes a sense of stress or preoccupation, like when people are studying for exams. But when I was in the dome, there was always a feeling of calm.

I heard someone describe the dome as a human brain, which is a nice analogy and quite apt. Last time I was there I noticed a librarian shelving books with focus and precision; a homeless man was splayed in one of the swivel chairs, muttering to himself; and there was a student, her head buried in a textbook, trying to block everything out and repeating something over and over, each time more resolutely. This is one of the few places in Melbourne that really has the whole spectrum of society cheek by jowl; it's a truly democractic space.

See Lucy's drawing of the dome in our Enchanted dome image gallery.