Ask the 2010 Georges Mora Foundation Fellow, why his 10,000 paper plane project has resonated with so many people and he answers with the same clarity he’s shown in creating the work itself. “There’s a simple poetry to it that everyone can understand”.

Ten thousand paper planes (Nakamura Lock design; glides easily) slowly and delicately descend through the resonant space of the domed Reading Room at the State Library. Nine cameras record their spiralling descent, including one in the centre which rotates ten times over ten minutes, slowly tilting to reveal the room as each subsequent level releases its paper bounty.

A room “like a big cranium”, lined with “all those books, all that thinking flying around” is filled with different paper activated by visual–spatial imagination, experiment and teamwork. A huge chamber of thinking in flight. He’s right. There is a simple poetry to it.

Text by Robyn Winslow