City evolutions - place of coal

This paper describes the creative thoughts and ideas behind a projection developed for the Newcastle City Evolutions Project in Watt Street, Newcastle during 2013-2014. Entitled, “Place of Coal” the projection was designed and used on the David Maddison building. This report serves to acknowledge the sources of various contributions used in the project, and is not intended to report on the technical characteristics of the project. This was a collaborative project and was developed using contributions from: Greg Ray, John FitzGerald, Allan Chawner, Paul Foley, Bill McQuire and the University of Newcastle Cultural Collections. Place of Coal actually began as a story about the history of shipping and the Port of Newcastle but evolved into a more general story about coal, shipping and Watt Street in Newcastle. The projection tells a personal narrative exploring the close link between coal and the place I grew up in. Long years before it was colonised coal was being used by the Awabakal in the region. Coal was actually pivotal to the area being discovered and continues to play a major role in the life of Newcastle right up to this day. The film also reflects on the personal story of coal itself – the process of taking coal from its sources to its destinations. The complexity of this is amazing. From the logistics to the overwhelming scale is quite a feat of engineering. My two young children actually started my own appreciation of this. They love to drive past the coal loaders at Kooragang or to sit and watch the coal trains lumber by or the giant ships wade into the harbour. The more I watched with their eyes the more their amazement caught on in me. Regardless of other feelings find it incredible to consider the amazing scale of the huge achines and hips that bring our harbour to life. The film runs for about 15 minutes and is in five distinct parts: 1. Awabakal Dreaming; 2. Early European History of Watt Street, Coal and Shipping; 3. Digging it out - Underground Mining; 4. Getting to the Harbour - Trains and Logistics 5. Exporting - Loading and Shipping