Maria Calix's paper maze invites you to tell your own story

Dancers will move in and out of the installation, performing moves choreographed by Rafael Bonachela. Photo: Dallas Kilponen

Paper can take a lot of punishment, says British-based artist Mira Calix. "You think of paper as being very delicate," she says, "but once the starch is out of it, it becomes like fabric. It becomes tough."

Calix spent her English summer proving that point. With a team of five assistants, she treated 1.5 kilometres of paper, wetting each side of some 400 sheets then crushing them to create a wrinkled, crumpled effect. The six of them worked 30 days. There was just one paper cut.

Calix's sheets have now travelled to Sydney, where they form the bulk of her installation, Inside There Falls, at Carriageworks. The Sydney Festival piece is essentially a giant, soft labyrinth, where paper hangs from the ceiling, and 180 speakers play music and words read by English actress Hayley Atwell.

There are also dancers twisting and twirling throughout, their routines choreographed by Sydney Dance Company artistic director Rafael Bonachela. South African-born Calix met him via Twitter on a trip to Sydney while developing the project.

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Inside There Falls is typical of Calix's work, which mixes music and physical immersion; her installation, My Secret Heart, which surrounded people in a purpose-built 360-degree screen, won her the first of two British Composers awards.

She says the new piece is about storytelling "it's such a primitive human need". As people enter Inside There Falls, and take their path through the maze, hearing different strands of music and voice, they are making their own story, she says. And she loves to watch them as they do; she can't resist seeing how people interact.

No one noticed Calix watching on Thursday, the installation's opening day. "But if you do see me and recognise me, holler," she says with a laugh, before adding: "Actually, quietly whisper."

Inside There Falls is at Carriageworks, noon-8pm daily until January 17.

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Maria Calix's paper maze invites you to tell your own story