Anton Hecht wants to work alongside Sheffield’s Central Library to give visitors a chance to find some books on the shelves that have hidden illustrations of the fore edge of the books.

The artist creates the work by painting an illustration on the edges of the pages of a book while the pages are held at an angle, so the design disappears when the book is closed normally, and can only be seen if the pages are moved back into the right alignment.

“This is a medieval art form, where certain books had hidden images drawn on their fore edge for people to find, by bending the pages in a certain manner,” said Anton.

Hidden artwork that can only be seen if the pages of the book are fanned the right way

“For this new work we propose seven artists from Sheffield will create hidden fore edge books that will be placed on the shelves of the Central Library for the public to find and see the image emerge.”

He did an undercover festival of flip books in Darlington libraries four years ago, involving 13 artists creating the little animations inside books.

Anton is doing research into participatory art using games in public. He did an urban maypole project where street furniture was turned into maypoles, with an adjustable crown. The idea was tried out at Park Hill last year.

During the current social distancing restrictions Anton has been working on social distanced dancing, where participants were filmed following steps marked out on a street in Gateshead solo and joined up on film later. See the results at antonhecht.wordpress.com/virtual-waltz

Anton Hecht's urban maypole project in action at Park Hill

Anton is keen for anyone who wants to be involved or support the project to get in touch with him. His email address is antnhec@gmail.com.

As he said: “Maybe in these times we need to rediscover medieval art and how it surprises us.”