Community members are embracing the Bellarine Peninsula’s newly opened state-of-the-art Boronggook Drysdale Library including a playable sculpture of an abstract female form installed near the entrance.

The City commissioned artist Sanné Mestrom to create The Secret a curved public artwork of a woman reclining in the grass that becomes both a place of refuge and interaction for the community.

The black concrete sculpture with brass inlay was designed to capture the imaginations of community members of all ages and invite children to play and discover.

Boronggook (pronounced Bo-rong-gook) is the traditional Wadawurrung name for the area which was a place of gathering and connection and means ‘turf’. The sculpture’s name The Secret reflects on how both the historical and contemporary use of the site as a library holds untold stories to share and secrets to imagine.

Boronggook Drysdale Library which is jointly funded by Council ($8.156 million) and the Victorian Government ($1 million) officially opened to the community on Friday 5 May 2023.

The innovative green roof is the first of its kind in our region featuring 4 300 plants that are already providing habitat for birds bees and butterflies.

Born in the Netherlands Sanné Mestrom moved to New Zealand as a child and now lives in Australia. Her previous public art commissions include Weeping Woman and Loose Variables. As part of an academic fellowship with the Australian Research Council Sanné researches “Play Beyond Playgrounds: Rethinking the Role of Public Art in Urban Play”. Find out more on the Art/Play/Risk website.

Mayor Trent Sullivan

The Secret is an exciting addition to Council’s collection of more than 300 public artworks monuments memorials and industrial objects.

With its circular design and green rooftop the Boronggook Drysdale Library is already a focal point in the area and The Secret will only attract further attention invite interaction and foster connection.

The sculpture can be played across crawled through and sat on so Council encourages community members to visit The Secret when they come to library relax on the lawn or pass through Drysdale.

Councillor Ron Nelson - Chair of the Geelong Regional Library Corporation Board

Artworks like The Secret add to the sense of community and creativity that libraries do so well to foster.

The Secret is already helping to develop a more cohesive community by being a continuation of libraries through encouraging people to interact with each other about art and creative concepts.

I hope our youngest visitors thoroughly enjoy climbing and having fun on the structure motivating them to be creative in their play both inside the library and outside.

Sanné Mestrom

My artwork is intended to be a place where people can create their own stories and build their own histories.

The Secret’s use is completely open-ended: People across all generations can imagine themselves into the curved forms and create their own memories that are unique and personal.

The work is also informed by my own physical transformation through motherhood where a body becomes a space of shared use beauty and discovery in response to the needs of a child.