Sugar Ghosts arises out of the work that he has recently completed as 2019 Mittelheuser scholar-in-residence at the State Library of Queensland (extended to December 2020 due to COVID-19).
This work investigated sound as historical material in the Library's collections. The exhibition moves beyond cataloguing sounds, into using historical sound materials to effectively evoke a sense of history and place. Sound is a powerful trigger for individual memory; descriptions, recordings, and reconstructions of sound often form a part of our attempt, not just to describe the past, but to make the past convincing to each other-to make it present. Ghost Sounds as an exhibition is part of ongoing research into using sound as affective material in creating narrative spatial experiences in a gallery setting.
Seth Ellis is a Senior Lecturer in Design at the Queensland College of Art, as well as a narrative artist and installation designer.