Project: ‘The Secret Diary of Bloomsbury’
The Secret Diary of Bloomsbury is a multi-site installation initially put in place for the Bloomsbury Festival 2017. The folklorist, writer and maker Elizabeth Dearnley and I installed twelve bird-boxes across Bloomsbury, each containing a ‘Secret Diary’. Diaries were themed to their locations – from the ‘Diary of Dreams’ in Treadwell’s Books, to the ‘Diary of Found Things’ in the Foundling Museum – and prompted people to share secrets, stories and memories of the area.
Some of the diaries are still in place, filling up with vernacular writing and stories of this unique part of central London. We are Tweeting some of these stories @BloomsSecret.
The project has been featured in iNews, and on BBC Radio London. Some of the diaries are still out there and going strong!
Sex, solitude and secrets: what we learnt from Londoners’ anonymous diaries
Dr Michael Eades 