About the write/here project

The write/here project offers a critical exploration of public and personal relationships with Hobart, installed across twenty-seven advertising billboards during Ten Days on the Island, 23 March until 01 April 2007.

The write/here project is part community event, part temporary public art project and part media intervention.

The artists have been motivated to transform 27 city billboard spaces from common advertising messages into a vast urban narrative which reveals the intimate personal stories and marginalised micro-histories of people who call this city home.

Each billboard hosts a single narrative text, a personal response to life in Hobart. These texts were selected from responses recorded from different community groups; recent arrivals to Tasmania from the Middle East and West Africa, prison inmates, clients at nursing homes, college students, members of the Aboriginal community; and anonymous submissions from the general public.

HOW TO TAKE PART IN THE PROJECT


(now closed)
Stage two: Generating discussion and contributions for the project book (Now open)

1: View the installed billboards in Hobart, Tasmania.
2: View the entire 27 billboards virtually on this site.
3: Add a comment to any of the twenty-seven billboards featured in this project. Simply click on your chosen billboard site on the Home page map, and add your comment on the site page.


Stage one – Generating billboard narrative (now closed)

We are asking you to contribute to the project by offering us a short text about your personal experience of life in Hobart. Your response will be added to the daily forum, allowing you to view and comment on the responses of other people who share your city. (You can now view these responses in the contributions archive)

Another way to get involved with the project is by taking part in one of our free writing workshops (at various locations around the city). These workshops will take place in January 2007. Please register your interest for the writing workshops by email. (view images from the workshops here)

By submiting your response to the project (by web forum or writing workshop) you will create the possibility of your text being selected, designed and displayed on to an advertising billboard in central Hobart for a two-week period in March 2007.

In a city stripped bare of its advertising, we will begin to see the personal thoughts and messages of people just like us, spread across the city like a virus. Hobart will reveal itself as a city publicly empowered through the personal voices of the community hidden within.

If you have something to say about life in Hobart and you would like to share it with others, our project needs you. You can submit as many responses as you like and we encourage you to revisit the site often and to read and respond to new posts on the forum.

This project is unique and has never been attempted anywhere else in the world. Help us make it happen here in Hobart.


HOW IS THE PROJECT GOING TO HAPPEN?

The write/here project has been developed by the project team of; artists, James Newitt and Justy Phillips, the the assistance of writer, Rosie Dub. Together with our sponsors and generous supporters, we have created an opportunity for the project to take place in Hobart. The content of the project will be created by participants from the community who submit responses to the online forum or writing workshops.

The project is generously supported by Arts Tasmania, Australian Council for the Arts, Hobart City Council, as well as private sponsorship.

To contact the artists, please email:
info@writehereproject.org

For postal correspondence:

expecting good weather
9 Courtney Street
Lenah Valley
Tasmania 7008
Australia