Exhibitions

The Big Vertigo returns to UTS Library as a community-led creative wall celebrating student voices and collective making.

Originally activated in the Library, students were invited to collage, write, draw and experiment across large shared pages. Those contributions became the foundation for a special edition of Vertigo, developed in collaboration with the Vertigo editorial team.

The published book now returns to the space alongside a renewed invitation to contribute.

Browse the physical edition.
Add something to the communal wall.
Explore the digitised publication of BIG VERTIGO. 

This activation completes the loop, demonstrating how student participation moves from wall to page and back again.

It’s an open invitation to experiment, contribute and take up creative space within the Library.

You’re invited to take part in an evolving artwork.

Compose is the final ritual in Deborah Kelly’s C.U.L.T (Collaging Using Library Things) project. After months of colouring and cutting alongside the UTS community, these images return to the table once more — ready to be brought into relation.

Take a seat at the long communal table.
Choose from a shared archive of forms coloured and cut by Deborah and participants during the residency.
Arrange them within the marked square. Rotate, layer, test, shift.

In Deborah’s practice, composition is an act of attention. Images are moved again and again until something begins to settle.

When your composition feels complete, photograph it from above using the mounted phone holder. Then return the pieces to the table so the next person can begin.

Nothing is fixed. Nothing is taken away.
Each arrangement is temporary and part of a growing cycle of collective making.

If you’d like to share your work, tag @UTSLibrary and let it join the wider C.U.L.T archive.

Step inside the C.U.L.T. studio and encounter the final works created during Deborah Kelly’s 2025 Creative in Residence at UTS Library.

C.U.L.T. (Collaging Using Library Things) unfolded as a series of shared rituals. Discarded books were coloured, cut, collected and recomposed. Pages that once began as trees moved through many lives. From knowledge to archive to renewal.

These artworks were called into form through months of gathering, selecting and recomposing imagery. Throughout the residency, students, artists and visitors coloured and cut alongside Deborah, contributing to a growing archive of forms. From that shared archive of fragments, Deborah composed the final works you see here.

This exhibition invites you to pause with the finished compositions and reflect on the process that brought them into being. A practice grounded in transformation, kinship and collective making.

Behind the scenes, Deborah’s residency works are currently being transformed from collage into something grounding within our Library spaces. Something you will be able to gather around. Expect bold colour. Softness. A new creative pulse woven into the everyday life of the Library.

Your platform. Your playground. Your Vertigo.

How it works

• Grab a pen, crayon, sticker, ribbon — anything from the table.
• Choose a prompt or go rogue. Doodle, write, collage, confess, rant, or create.
• Stick your piece into one of the giant scrapbooks.

This is your invitation to take up space in the creative conversations at UTS. Who knows? What you create might even end up in print.

Make it weird. Make it wonderful. Just make it yours.
This is your Vertigo now.

Explore the history behind Elsie, Australia’s first women’s refuge. Founded in 1974 in Glebe, Gadigal Nura/Sydney, the home was established by a core group of feminist activists who sought to create a safe space for women and children fleeing domestic violence. This archival display offers a glimpse into the early stories of the Women’s Refuge Movement and the wider feminist activism of the 1970s in Australia and beyond.

Featuring rare photographs, periodicals, posters and audio materials, the display highlights the stories and struggles of women who challenged social and political structures to demand that domestic violence become a public issue.

A curated book display of relevant resources from the UTS Library collection is also available to borrow, offering deeper insight into the Movement’s history and legacy.

Visitors are invited to help bring history to life by colouring photos of the people who shaped the Women’s Liberation Movement. These images honour moments of courage, care, and collective resistance.

Curated in collaboration with UTS Gallery, this display complements Zanny Begg’s exhibition of new works Elsie (and Minnie), showing concurrently at UTS Gallery.

You’re invited to pause, reflect, and take part in an evolving artwork that honours the life cycle of books — and the trees they came from.

Colour Using Library Things is the first ritual in artist Deborah Kelly’s Creative in Residence project C.U.L.T (Collaging Using Library Things). Take a seat at the long table beneath two sculptural trees and colour in repurposed pages from discarded Encyclopaedia Britannica volumes.

These once-forgotten pages will be revived through collective creativity, then transformed into new artworks during upcoming collage workshops led by Deborah Kelly, the 2025 UTS Library Creative in Residence. Learn more about Deborah's practice and the full C.U.L.T project here.

Set within a natural, mysterious space, this first C.U.L.T ritual offers a moment of stillness and shared breath. Choose a page. Add colour. Leave a note for the trees. Your contribution becomes part of an unfolding artwork that will continue to grow throughout the 2025 Creative in Residence program.

This is a space for quiet exchange — a gesture of care, a breath returned to the trees.

This September, join us in the Student Learning Hub to make a moth, an activity as part of our 2024 Creative in Residence program and Global Goals Month. 

Throughout the month, students are invited to create origami moths from recycled books and inscribe positive messages on their wings. Whether you choose to gift your creation to a friend, take it home, or contribute to our communal display, your crafted moth will be a symbol of care and kindness for both yourself and the community.

To welcome our 2024 Creative in Residence, Vita Cochran, and to introduce her residency, Library Eclipse, we invite you to immerse yourselves in the start of an extraordinary journey through the world of moths.  

Vita will weave enchantment into the fabric of our library, quite literally. Using her renowned hand embroidery skills, Vita will camouflage lifelike moths throughout our space, directly onto the upholstered furniture, and in other nooks and crannies, inviting visitors to explore and discover the beauty in the unexpected. The project will celebrate the wonder and intricacy of these quiet, mysterious and vulnerable creatures – moths. 

In collaboration with Vita, we invite you to join us outside the Library on Level 7 for an immersive experience where you can explore, learn, and unleash your creativity as you delve into the captivating realm of moths, and craft your own moth-inspired creations to contribute to our display. 

Don't miss this unique opportunity to connect with nature, art, and community. Come and be part of Crafting Nature's Marvels—a celebration of curiosity, creativity, and the fascinating world of moths. 

To celebrate a new year and the arrival of fresh faces with our buzzing bee-themed craft pop-up! While our entire library has been transformed into a hive of activity for orientation, we've carved out a special space just outside the UTS Library on level 7 for hands-on crafting.

As the heart of our university, we view the Library as our hive—a place where knowledge thrives and creativity flourishes. Join us for a bundle of activities designed to spark joy and unleash your inner child. Get crafty with bee origami, engage your mind with a buzz-worthy crossword inspired by the bee movie, indulge in some relaxing bee colouring, and dive into our drop in beeswax workshops, conducted in collaboration with UTS Sustainability.

Welcome to our hive! We're confident this semester will be nothing short of extraordinary.  Let's make it bee-utiful together!