The Portland Soundtrail was launched on 1st of April 2023. Thanks to the Portland Business Association, the Foundations Portland and all those who helped out at the Crystal Theatre launch event. You did an amazing job.
Eight months in the making and with a crack-shot production team, the Portland Soundtrail is a sonic time-capsule of the lives, loves and hardships of this blue collar heartland affectionately known today as The Town The Build Sydney.
GPS activated audio brings to life the ‘plant’, the amazing heritage listed site – alongside the voices and memories of the people of this remarkable town in the New South Wales Central Tablelands.
Portland’s industrial past shares much with Port Kembla and Broken Hill. However the Portland Soundtrail goes beyond the grand narratives of heroes and hardship, and takes us deep inside the mindset of the ordinary people and everyday lives.
The Portland Soundtrail makes an artform out of memory making
Drawn from original oral histories, extensive research and considerable goodwill from the community, this Soundtrail is quite literally hewn from the streets, just as limestone and shale came from the ground.
Hear proto-feminist, Mary Ryan’s admonishments of the politics played out around the local butcher strike that rippled out from Portland and onto the national stage.
“Yeah, I’d have been classed a communist,” says Tommy Fitz. Just like his union rep forefathers Tommy helped negotiate the tenuous balance between the well-being of the workers and the interests of management.
Or hear about the girl from the workers cottages on Williwa, who’d crossed the threshold of the limestone quarry to escape her family home for an imaginary playground on the edge of their backyard: “I was Cleopatra or Nefertiti and this was the Valley of the Kings.”
If you want to experience a highly realised mobile sound walk today, and hear and feel what it was like, from the rockfalls and the siren calls to the cement-laden roofs and union marches, then Portland Soundtrail is well worth the trip. Just two hours out of Sydney. Make a day of it!
“Really loved it. And I’m seventy four. So if I can work it, anyone can.” Kaylin Caddis.
“It was spiritual” Guy Fitzgerald.
“A pilgrimage” Suzie Edwards.
The Portland Soundrail: Download it free on your iOs or Android device and walk the streets.
Images by Radiant Productions